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Visa The road we wriggled along to Pirna was a narrow maze of construction materials strewn higgledy-piggledy on the thoroughfare along with cobbles, tram-lines, loose sand, jagged rocks, cracked sidewalks and potholes from missing cobbles, had us weaving, jouncing and twanging along. Rebecca's rear panniers bounced off a number of times. A fast downhill on cobbles. What fun. Arran called this the technical portion of the tour. This was the first major refurbishing the area had experienced since the war and the contractors were going all out to beat the band, fearful government money would run out before the work was completed. As Arran explained, "Can't ask for more until you spend everything you've got." Even in the smallest villages, tons of work proceeded pell-mell. The mixture of brand new buildings standing beside old decrepit antediluvian ones looked strange. Sometimes new buildings languished behind old main street buildings. Europeans didn't knock old buildings down but refurbished them instead, inside and out. New found prosperity had former East Germany busily pounding, jack hammering and surveying. At the train station in Pirna Sharon and I grimaced for mug shots in case we needed them for the Czech border crossing. Arran guffawed when he saw mine, "You look like a wild animal caught in the glare of headlights." He was right. On the outskirts of town, Rebecca stopped to take a picture of apartment block housing. The design looked like long prison cells for inmates. The most incongruous aspect was the apartments sprouted immediately adjacent to a farmer's plowed field. In North America they wouldn't be able to find people to live in them, but here they were full. Instead of stopping with the gang on the roadside, I continued to a crossroads up ahead. Two construction workers were there as I pulled off. "Guten tag," I animated, which began a flurry of questions. Soon, another six guys joined us. Seeing my Canada flag one worker said, "Canada good! Grizzly!" Arran, Rebecca and Sharon arrived, causing a new flurry of questions. A fellow disappeared into the construction trailer and came back with a large pot of pasta--the leftovers from their lunch. A couple of spoons stuck out from it. Arran, between shoveling in mouthfuls of noodles, pronounced it as "the best when someone else made it." We leaned our bikes against the trailer and, with the pot on the ground, all four of us crouched around grunting and smacking appreciatively like starving animals. The workers gathered to watch in amusement. One fellow took the pot from us (watch those fingers), and set it on a bike seat so we were standing up and eating in a more civilized position. It was difficult for us to crowd around at the same time, so we set it back on the ground. Another fellow to ran to the cab of his dump truck and returned with a thick woolen blanket. He doubled it up, set it on the ground and announced, "For the ladies!" The workers talked of grizzly bears, polar bears, Rocky Mountains and Niagara Falls. The one fellow added his three English words: "Canada good! Grizzly!" Arran contended New Zealand was better and the eight workers quickly denounced him, causing Arran great patriotic pain. Arran dug out his pictorial New Zealand book and showed them the wonders of New Zealand, all the while saying, "Canada gross. New Zealand nix so gross. Gud, ya." This gave us the opportunity to eat his share of the pasta. When Arran finished showing the book he exulted, "New Zealand. Good." The fellow quickly shook his head and exclaimed, "Canada good! Grizzly!" By the time Arran returned there were only a few noodles left, certainly no sausage. Rebecca wanted to lick the pot clean, and asked my opinion of what they would think. I thought she should go for it, but she scraped it with a spoon instead. Another fellow disappeared and came back with a huge bag of apples. He pointed to our bags and indicated we were to put them in our panniers (the apples were probably their dessert). We happily complied. The ring leader grabbed Arran's helmet, stuck it on his oversized head (causing us to break into stitches at the hilarity of the Styrofoam beanie perched on top of his massive skull) and proclaimed he was coming with us. Arran managed to get his helmet back--and with handshakes, well wishes, and warnings of dire hills ahead, we were off. One worker grabbed my rear rack and sprinted down the road giving me a fast Tour de France push off. Spaghetti sauce stained grins adorned our lips as we sailed along, pushed by a tailwind. The scenery became the best in Germany so far, with mountains looking like ancient cinder cone volcanoes and sheer rock pinnacles. Roadside construction narrowed the road to one lane. Sharon, in the lead, cut to the inside of the pylons. As she passed the end pylon a flowing strand of warning tape flapping in the breeze snared her front bag. In a few feet the snare reached its limit. Instead of snapping, like we all thought it would, it jerked Sharon's front tire sideways into the air and she tumbled unceremoniously to the pavement. Picking herself up, she brushed the dirt off and moaned, "So much for anarchy." In Konigstein we wanted to see a medieval castle, but it turned out to be way up on the mountain. Gazing upward, we admired it from the valley floor; we had just swooped down the hill, and had no intention of trundling back up. The only food store in town closed between one and two. It was one-thirty. We put the bikes in the small playground park across the street and Sharon stayed while Arran, Rebecca and I wandered the open air market making our way to the bakery. At the bakery, Rebecca tried to sort out her change for carrot cake. The woman beamed, "Just hold it up and I'll take a few." Arran and Rebecca were happy with the outcome. They thought she had given them a good deal. At least, she hadn't taken all their coins. We bought onions in the marketplace--single onions were hard to come by. The large supermarkets only sold things in mega bunches--including whole bags of onions and peppers.Arran claimed this was the way shopping was meant to be done--outside in the sunshine. I bought an ice cream bar portraying a chocolate clown face. The nose was a round green bubble gum. Arran wanted to know how I found all the good things. A queue formed outside the grocery store, waiting for it to reopen. When it did, I bought a kilogram ice cream log. Arran commented, "I remember when I could eat that much ice cream." One town later, Bad Schandau, was the last in Germany before the Czech border. A steady stream of pedestrians and cyclists paraded along the route from the Duty Free building on the Czech side--Germans paying cut rate prices for Coke and other goods. We reached the border, produced our passports and the guard waved us on. As we pedaled away Arran complained, "I'm a bit disappointed. I wanted to be frisked. The whole nine yards." Sharon laughed, "Welcome to the Czech Republic." I yelled, "Prague, here we come!" just in time to see the Czech border guards up ahead--apparently we had just gone through the German check point, not the Czech as I had thought. "Oh, oh," Sharon said, and oh-oh, she was right. Arran and Rebecca approached first. Arran fished out the visa he had obtained in the UK. Rebecca dug out a UK passport from the bottom of an obscure pannier compartment--so she didn't require a visa. I gave the guard my passport. He flipped through the pages and then intoned, "Visa?" I pointed to my passport. The guard slapped it and enunciated, "Visa." I hunched my shoulders. "No visa," I said. He barked, "No visa! Problem! Visa!" I meekly shrugged my shoulders. "No." He bellowed, "Visa!" I stared at him blankly. He motioned for us to push our bikes to the side. The guard spoke to Arran in German. He told Arran he would accompany him to the Duty Free building up the road where there was a bank. Arran would exchange two-hundred Deutsche marks for ten thousand koruny; then Sharon and I would fill out a visa form. "Schnell! Schnell!" the guard ordered Arran. I told Arran it wasn't worth two-hundred bucks--we weren't going. Arran and Rebecca offered to pay half. That wasn't it. It was the principle of the thing. We, Canadians, needed a visa to set foot in Czech. I was indignant. Forget it. Sharon had phoned and talked to the Czech embassy when we were in London and was told "Visa, no problem." It turned out there was a big difference between that iteration and "Visa, no. Problem!" The guard handed back our passports and in a very Italian maneuver flippantly pointed his arm back towards Germany, telling us to move our butts the hell off Czech territory. Amid sudden tears, realizing we were going to be broken up against our will, we hugged and cried good-bye. Arran blubbered, "W-What's the big d-deal--it's only another p-piece of land." But when politicians ordered we couldn't enter without a special piece of paper, there was no way around the impasse. Would that be Visa or Mastercard? We somberly turned around and pedaled off, not wishing to prolong the wrenching agony of our sudden breakup with Arran and Rebecca any longer than necessary. It was the most difficult thing I had done in a long time. We wanted to continue with them. Sharon didn't care about the money. We slowly pedaled to the German border station. The German border guards glanced at our passports and waved us through. Depressed, Sharon and I cycled a few kilometers and decided to stop for the day. We were in a national park area. We followed a trail that led into the trees above the road and set up. I wondered if I did the right thing by not going to Prague. Sharon lamented my decision. As we set up camp and ate supper it was very quiet. No jokes from Arran or Kiwi comments to lighten the mood. It felt like something was missing. Our goal of reaching Prague was snatched away at the last moment. Sharon said she now had a very small taste of how it must have felt for East Germans to be forbidden to leave their country. I felt not only restricted but personally rejected. It was a sad evening. Talking it over, we decided that in the morning we would go and get a visa, ride like bandits, and catch up with Arran and Rebecca. In Prague we would meet them at one o'clock on the bridge where they planned to meet their other friends. It would be a joyous surprise reunion. |
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