Stark contrasts

You'd think that with a marijuana cafe next door, writing this blog would be easy. You'd be wrong though, it's closed, presumably Rastafarians also need a day off. Oh, and it is Sunday, so most of Germany is closed too. Which was a blessing on the road. Driving the Autobahn is a cathartic experience; there's no worry about being caught speeding because there are no speed limits. Why this brilliant idea hasn't caught on anywhere else in the world is mind-boggling. Paulo was in his element, Lilith was her usual dower self (but I'm warming to her), the music was on loud (although listening to the songs for a second time might not have been too bad, there is fear that those lovely tunes will soon become tiresome) and the miles simply peeled away. There were some suggestions that a tour of Germany should include the Black Forest. Which holds a problem - there's no 'Black Forest' on any of my maps and what's all the fuss about anyway? It seems to me that Germany is just one big forest with little blobs of civilisation in-between. I suppose I could have asked Lilith to find it, but it was nice to hear her being silent for a change. Which brings to mind something that everyone in South Africa used to say: "Speak Afrikaans when you're over there," they said knowledgeably, "It's almost like Dutch and German, and you'll be liked a lot more by the locals because they hate the English". Well bull to all of that. After speaking Afrikaans in Belgium, Holland and in Germany, I can honestly say no one had a clue as to what I was talking about. Speak English and everyone understands you. And you don't get those stupid stares either... But we digress... Leipzig was the destination for the day, and it seemed there would be more than enough time, so a way-point expedition was a distinct possibility. This was simply a matter of closing the eyes and plopping a finger down on the map somewhere between Hamburg and Leipzig. Gottingen was the result, and despite it being a Sunday and almost completely devoid of human life, it was beautiful; perfect even... Much like everything else in this country (This perfection is becoming a bit of an irritation really, just one upturned dustbin or something would be a welcome change to the norm.) In fact it is an example of what every medium sized-town should look like. And that's about as much as anyone can say for it. (It's a lot easier to write about stuff when it doesn't work than when it does; the journalists in Germany must be amongst the most bored and frustrated people in the world - which also, perhaps, explains the local population's penchant for media of the soft-porn variety). The real story begins where West Germany ends. It's almost as if there's a straight line drawn between East and West. Well actually there was, and there are sign posts depicting barb-wire fences and sentry towers to show where it was. But visibly the difference in the landscape is obvious... the forests, black of otherwise, disappeared and to be replaced by wind-farms in open fields. Miles and miles of them. The villages are visibly different too: those in the west are all very similar; there's a large church steeple in the middle with a bunch of houses placed snuggly and concentrically around it. These villages are always neatly tucked down in a valley - all dainty-like. The ones in the east are different; there's a huge chimney stack in the middle and you can't quite see what's under the stack because surrounding it are huge concrete blocks that, one assumes, are apartment buildings. They look a lot like prisons. Admittedly, I only saw one village that looked like this, but that was the only village I saw before getting to Leipzig. Other things I saw included a large power generating facility that looked decidedly nuclear and what might have been an oil-refinery. Whatever, it is all very depressing: One minute you're in a scene from a Christmas postcard and the next you're in the middle of a Dickens novel. George Orwell even. And then you arrive in Leipzig. Which somehow explains everything but leaves you clueless nonetheless. It gives you a headache. Truly it does. But someone has tried to make this miserable place look all perky and modern and vibrant and naff stuff like that. Coming into the town you cross two bridges; the first painted pink with yellow cross bars, the second painted purple with yellower-than-yellow crossbars. Then there's the road signs... Everywhere else the road signs are blue and white; here they're all black and yellow. It's glaring; like everything is a warning. But whatever the warning it doesn't prepare you for the city itself. It's weird. Decidedly weird. Initially it's so modern and lovely. All the way in, the roads are beautiful, the verges manicured, the traffic signals bright and new. Then you enter town and it's all these old buildings, but brand new. And there's something odd about them. Initially you don't see it, but your mind registers something wrong. But yeah, there it is... Everything has graffiti over it; they've tried to scrub some of it off the newer buildings but you can still the marks where it was. In some places they seem to have just given up trying to scrub it off, mostly around the train-station area. Walking around it gets even more strange. Here there's this magnificently refurbished building, bold and impressive; and next to it there something that might have been a building once, but now it's little more than a pile of rubble. Next to this there's a building in the throws of refurbishment. The new facade going up serving only as a new canvas for graffiti artists. It's like a major struggle between construction and destruction. The west is moving in and making everything new, but there's an anarchic east that is fighting relentlessly against progress. It's odd. Mind you, one can see why the German economy is so strong, they're building, and building, and building; all at a furious rate out here in the east. You see it in the new highways and the new buildings. Somehow everything feels plastic though. A city shouldn't be this new and try to look old. It just feels fake. Maybe that's the graffiti artists' point, maybe that's why they're protesting. But who knows, who can judge... I'm only here for a day; glad to have experienced it, but awfully glad to leave tomorrow too. Oh my, if this is what East Germany is like, what joys does the Czech Republic hold? Tomorrow... Prague... Gulp! And to think that the dagga joint next door is closed!