To Dortmund
Day Six
Things move so fast when you have so little time to see them. And so it is that we must leave Bavaria and travel north to Dortmund. It's back to the Autobahn for the ride. It should take 5-6 hours so we leave early morning with my cousin and the rest of the gang in the van.
Autobahn driving is wonderful. In the cities the speed is regulated so that traffic will move effectively. In the country, there is no speed limit. Normal travel at 120 kph becomes travel at 160 – 180 kph. We’re doing great with time.
As we arrive at the outer streets on the south side of the city, my Dad is trying to remember the roads. Granted, he spent the first 20 years of his life there and those are years that we tend to remember well. But, things change and memory is tricky. We end up driving along the east wall. Well, there isn’t any wall now. But there was. Dortmund was one of the great walled cities of medieval Germany but the walls were destroyed in war by combatants and in peace by people who needed building materials. Anyway, the loop around the east side of downtown puts us onto the right road and head north.
He thinks that there should be a road to the left that we can take that would be faster – but it’s closed (or so the sign says). Things look different, he says. Well, my cousin says that she knows where her mother lives and that we should turn right and pull into that parking lot so she can stop in the store. We do. Then, dad remembers the place. The parking lot and the store are on land that used to be part of eth coal mine property where he worked when he was young. We see a tower that was for the mine shaft and there, in a vacant lot, looking run down and dilapidated, is a small brink building. Dad says THAT is the lab where he worked for at the mine. We take pictures and see a billboard that shows what the mine looked like when they closed it and what it will look like at the end of the redevelopment in two years.
Then my cousin is back with some bottles of German hospitality and we drive the remaining mile to my aunt’s house. She is excited to see us. And, as we did when we first arrived in Munich, we talk, we toast amd we stay up til the wee hours enjoying the company of family of which I know little and my kids know nothing. My wife is happy, and I’m happy. My dad has tears in his eyes. It’s good – or as we learned to say – Alles gut!
Things move so fast when you have so little time to see them. And so it is that we must leave Bavaria and travel north to Dortmund. It's back to the Autobahn for the ride. It should take 5-6 hours so we leave early morning with my cousin and the rest of the gang in the van.
Autobahn driving is wonderful. In the cities the speed is regulated so that traffic will move effectively. In the country, there is no speed limit. Normal travel at 120 kph becomes travel at 160 – 180 kph. We’re doing great with time.
As we arrive at the outer streets on the south side of the city, my Dad is trying to remember the roads. Granted, he spent the first 20 years of his life there and those are years that we tend to remember well. But, things change and memory is tricky. We end up driving along the east wall. Well, there isn’t any wall now. But there was. Dortmund was one of the great walled cities of medieval Germany but the walls were destroyed in war by combatants and in peace by people who needed building materials. Anyway, the loop around the east side of downtown puts us onto the right road and head north.
He thinks that there should be a road to the left that we can take that would be faster – but it’s closed (or so the sign says). Things look different, he says. Well, my cousin says that she knows where her mother lives and that we should turn right and pull into that parking lot so she can stop in the store. We do. Then, dad remembers the place. The parking lot and the store are on land that used to be part of eth coal mine property where he worked when he was young. We see a tower that was for the mine shaft and there, in a vacant lot, looking run down and dilapidated, is a small brink building. Dad says THAT is the lab where he worked for at the mine. We take pictures and see a billboard that shows what the mine looked like when they closed it and what it will look like at the end of the redevelopment in two years.
Then my cousin is back with some bottles of German hospitality and we drive the remaining mile to my aunt’s house. She is excited to see us. And, as we did when we first arrived in Munich, we talk, we toast amd we stay up til the wee hours enjoying the company of family of which I know little and my kids know nothing. My wife is happy, and I’m happy. My dad has tears in his eyes. It’s good – or as we learned to say – Alles gut!
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