Bernstein

“I'm riding a 3-speed, 20 year-old, communist-made bicycle with mismatched tires, what the Christ do you expect from me?!” I shout to myself as I flounder on the muddy trail. I've never taken a bike trip outside of a city before, but I've decided that my first foray into longer distance cycling should take the form of a 13 mile trip to the town of Ribntz-Damgarten. Go big or go home, right?

After the bomb threat to the University that kicked this week off, I decided that I needed more excitement in my life. I decided to take this bike trip for several other reasons as well though. First of all, I recently repaired my bicycle, and I'm drunk with my power being able to travel at upwards of 15 miles per hour! Also, I've developed a recent “interest binge” in amber after my coworker told me that the area here is just covered in the stuff. Eventually I landed on the idea of visiting the Amber Museum in Ribnitz-Damgarten, which bills itself as the Amber City. Today's word, “Bernstein” comes from the low German word “bernen”, which means “to burn” and “stein”, which of course means “stone”. Bernstein is the German word for amber, did you know that amber is flammable? Neither did I!

I planned on combing the beach for amber for about an hour before I set off on my trip. Did you know that amber floats in salt water? (Neither did I!) My wide-eyed and naïve goal was to load up on at least 1 pound of amber before I hit the trails, sell it along the way, and finance my admission to the museum. Turns out, amber only washes ashore after storms, and we've had fantastic weather over the past few days. My planned departure point was Markgrafenheide, just north east of Rostock. I was going to travel along the coast and then after about 7 miles head straight east to Ribnitz-Damgarten, emphasis on the “planned” and “was going to” parts in the last sentence.

It was a beautiful and foggy morning, totally alone on the beach.

I didn't bother to plan an actual route for my trip, but I knew the cities I was supposed to turn at, and I figured that would work well enough. Nope. On the trails, it didn't tell you where you were currently located, rather it told you where you could go from that point. It's like instead of saying “you're in Kansas City” it says “head this way to get to New York”, which is a stupid system, because you can head west out of Kansas City and eventually get to New York. This is apparently how the trail planners thought too. According to them “This way to XYZ“ means that they will take you to the middle of no where and then to XYZ. My midway point was the city of Graal-Müritz, beautiful name, dont you think? And as chance would have it, nearly every bike path east of Rostock leads to Graal-Müritz. This means that instead of taking an efficient route, I zig zagged all over the damned forest. At one point, I was forced to choose between a path through a swamp, which was reported to be flooded out and another path, which I could see to be nothing but mud. I opted for mud and was handsomely rewarded, with more mud. At another point, I turned left when I shouldn't have and went about 2 miles on the trail and ended up going about 500 yards as the crow flies. But it's the journey that matters, not the destination, right? Right? Somebody tell me I'm right...

Eventually I did make it to the euphonious town of Graal-Müritz. GM was once, and still is today, a spa resort town, and this place was gorgeous. Rows of villas, cafes, bright colors, thatched roofed cottages. Very picturesque. I should have planned my trip in reverse, so that I could end my day with an hour in the sauna and a relaxing massage from a Swede named Njord, but alas. Regardless, GM is definitely a place I intend on returning to when I have more time on my hands.

The thatched roofs look so cool.

After leaving GM, it was luckily a straight shot to Ribnitz-Damgarten. I guess god decided I needed a break. RD, like I said, bills itself as the Bernsteinstadt, and it sounds dumb, but I was literally expecting a town made of amber. Like amber windows, amber roads, amber everything. Nevermind that this would be horribly expensive and a disaster if anymore ever lit a match, but I wanted amber, damnit!

I could not be happier to be done biking.

This is the Amber Fisher and his Family fountain in the center of town. You can see him and his barefoot, hillbilly children, with their no doubt rabid dog.

The museum was really interesting, and when you pay to get in, they give you a free piece of amber. Apparently they are just rolling in it, so they can give the stuff away. One floor is the science of amber, how it forms, where it comes from, why Jurassic Park was total bullshit, and where to find it. I plugged my ears when they talked about Jurassic Park; I have to hold onto my childhood. The second story was all about amber jewelry and decorations, which, in my opinion, was an utter snooze-fest. “Oh look another amber necklace! Look at all the ways I can wear amber around my neck!” Take my advice and stay on the ground floor. The museum also has an amber finisher that you can watch, and for 5-15€ you can even finish a piece yourself. The museum staff are really nice, and the lady even let me take an extra piece of amber for free. I did have to shower her with compliments about how great the museum was though.

After the museum, I bummed around the city, ate lunch, and then hopped on a train back to Rostock. This train ride took 20 minutes and cost me 3€. My trip out took me 3 hours, but it was free, it was also beautiful, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

das Dorf

I’ve made it to Germany safe and sound. We arrived in Frankfurt Monday morning and then drove to a small town nearby called Eppstein. I really don’t think “small town” does justice to what Eppstein really is. Eppstein and many other places in Germany are technically called Dörfer, one of them is called a Dorf. The real translation is “village,” but I don’t think calling it a village does it justice either. Maybe this is just me, but I think of villages as something medieval or at the very least things that don’t exist anymore. Like with thatched roofs and horse-drawn carriages. Plus I just like using the German word Dorf whenever possible.

To illustrate what I mean by a Dorf and the weird position I think it deserves, let me tell you about Eppstein a little bit. Eppstein is where we stayed for two days after arriving, and it has some sort of training academy for bankers, I think. It’s a hostel with bank logos everywhere, but it’s a nice hostel. The dorf also has a castle and a ridiculous hill to climb in order to reach the castle. There are some really cool cars there and the place is very pretty. Now, when I left Kansas, I forgot to back a belt and have been using a bundle of embroidery floss as a make-shift belt since last Friday. I went up to the ladies that work the front desk and said (in German) “Is there anywhere nearby where I could buy a belt?” And the ladies instantly laughed at me. I was a little bit nervous about this conversation to begin with. For one, my German is rusty, and two I never learned the word for belt, but a friend told my it was “Gürtel” and I trusted him. So when the ladies laughed at me, I thought that Carl had told me something hilariously wrong, like when my mom told me that the past tense of squeeze was squoze (her joke lasted for 15 years though). It turns out that Carl didn’t lie to me; the ladies were laughing because of course there is no place to buy a belt in Eppstein; it’s a dorf. Maybe I could find a belt in Frankfurt instead. I guess I’ll have to keep my MacGuyver-style embroidery floss belt for a few more days.

This sort of shows the weird place that a dorf occupies in geography. Most of the people in a dorf would have to commute to another town for basic services like groceries or shopping or work, but the town itself isn’t necessarily old and it’s not cut off from civilization. A dorf is more like a suburb that lives on its own. Logistically I don’t think this is really that different from American cities. Imagine if you took an area like Phoenix. You have Phoenix proper and then you have the Phoenix metro, which sort of sprawls around Phoenix, but doesn’t really have distinct borders for places like Glendale or Sun City. Glendale and Sun City have center points though. Now if you took out all of the parking lots and condensed the neighborhoods toward the city center like in Germany, the distance between Phoenix and its suburbs would still be the same, but there would be a large buffer between them. This is basically how German cities are arranged, fundamentally the same as American ones but with less parking.