Tag Archives: german

The Revenge of Herman Leavitt

The rest of the story about driving in Berlin is that I got in an accident. I was waiting at a traffic light, and when the light turned green, I turned right (you can’t turn right on red in Germany). There was an empty bus lane to my right, which I thought I was supposed to avoid. As I was turning, I heard a screech of brakes and felt an impact on the rear right corner, so I pulled around the corner and stopped.

It was a taxi driver, who was going straight ahead in the bus lane. She hit my rear right bumper with her rear left bumper and did minor damage to both. On the Trabant, it broke the plastic corner piece; on the taxi, a small dent and scratched paint.

To make matters worse, she was seemingly the only person in Germany who spoke not a word of English. Under the circumstances, I could remember no German. After a lot of back and forth, she managed to convey that a) she didn’t want to involve the police any more than I did and b) she was willing to take a cash settlement of 200 euros (this after calling someone — presumably her company). Since it was pretty clearly my fault, I went to an ATM around the corner and withdrew 200 euros, for which she gave me a sort of handwritten receipt with her license number and basic information. (I had already taken a picture of her license plate, but it seemed to show good faith on her part.) As far as I could tell, no mention was made of insurance.

When I returned the car that evening, I told the guy that I had damaged the car and showed him the bumper. He said, “Just the plastic? No problem! I have a lot of those things.” So everyone was happy, except for me presumably.

Trabant Berlin

Or maybe so. In 1986, Alcalde and I were cruising down Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles in my 1972 Datsun 1200 (a car in much worse condition than that Trabant) and we were sideswiped by one Herman Leavitt of Century Park East, who was driving his new SUV and did not yet have insurance. He hit us at about 5 mph and mangled the driver’s side door. We settled for $150 and did not involve any police or insurance companies. $150 in 1986 is worth about $335 today, or 285 euros, so in a way I just borrowed the money from Herman Leavitt in Los Angeles to pay a taxi driver in Berlin 31 years later. And I still have 85 euros on account.

I am Even Steven.

Notes on Switzerland

Switzerland has more graffiti than I’ve seen outside of the US. It completely contradicts my image of Switzerland as clean and orderly. In Zürich there’s a long wall where graffiti seems to be allowed, probably in an attempt to redirect some of that tagging impulse.

But I guess it’s not enough for some people.

My German sucks*. I can read most of the signs and order things in stores, but my vocabulary far exceeds my grammar knowledge. I know words like Fußbodenschleifmaschine, but I fall all over myself trying to say that I’d like to check out of my hotel room.

And Swiss German is another creature entirely. I’m not sure how much I’d understand even if my Hochdeutsch were fluent. I think it would be like learning English and then taking a trip to northern Scotland. Some of the words would be familiar, but… Swiss German has a lilt that makes it sound Scandinavian. And they’ll start words with ch, which I don’t think standard German ever does. (I saw one sign that spelled Kinder as Chinder.) The standard greeting is Grüezi, which is sometimes pronounced as one would expect, but is often pronounced Grüße. And they roll their R’s like Spaniards, especially in rural areas. I wish I had a recording of the way the train conductor in Lauterbrunnen pronounced Mürren. They also frequently use merci for thank you and ciao for goodbye.

I like currywurst better than döner kebabs.

Almost everyone in Switzerland speaks English. Most of them humored** me in my attempts to speak German, but English is always available when needed.

Zürich’s Hauptbahnhof is one of the most trainstationy stations I’ve seen. It’s big and cavernous and the trains come right into the middle of it. I’d say it’s second only to Gare du Nord in its trainstationiness.

Tessalon*** does not seem to be OTC in Switzerland. In fact, you have to ask for ibuprofen, which is $11.00 for 20 tablets.

* No, autocorrect, I don’t mean “dicks.”
** No, not “humped.”
*** Not “Thessaloniki”! Just stop!

Excursion to Austria

Rolling along on the southwest side of Lake Zurich on my way through Liechtenstein to Feldkirch, Austria.

Why Feldkirch? Well, it looked like a nice little town just over the border, and if I’m doing a run to Liechtenstein, I might as well go a little further to Austria. And it looked more interesting than Vaduz itself.

Although I was hoping we’d go through Vaduz. We seem to have bypassed it. Bummer. Rural Liechtenstein looks exactly like rural Switzerland.

I arrived in Feldkirch at a quarter after ten and spent most of my time touring a 13th-century castle. There wasn’t much to the rest of the town, so I took the 11:48 train back rather than wait two more hours for the next train.

I think the people sitting next to me on the platform were gypsies. The daughter was speaking German, but I think the parents were speaking Romansch. But I’m mostly guessing. I’ve never heard Romansch spoken before.

The Huhn Tikka Masala in the restaurant car was quite good, and they were nice enough to give me a ten-cent discount on a double espresso so I could use up the last of my euros.

Got back to the hotel about 1:30. Time for a short nap before I go chocolate shopping.

Into Deepest Switzerland

Driving to Switzerland took a little over an hour. They didn’t even stop me at the border. Leaving the rental car return, I had to walk along the street for about a quarter mile and through a parking lot to get to the airport, then through the airport to get to the train station.

I was planning to get lunch in downtown Geneva, but the train I got on happened to be going to Montreux, which is the end of the Golden Pass line, so I went all the way to Montreux. I had time before the next train to Interlaken, so I walked along the lake. I didn’t see the Freddie Mercury statue, though.

The Golden Pass Classic is a set of refurbished older trains from 1914 and 1964. I mistakenly got on one of the first class cars, a fact the conductor discovered after I’d already settled in and there was no more room in second class. But I could pay to upgrade to first class. This required him to work through some elaborate calculation that involved talking to himself in both French and German, then concluding that I owed 12 francs. Thus for about $12.25 I have entered the ranks of the elite. Who knew that status could come so cheaply?

The train went through Gstaad, which, based entirely on The Return of the Pink Panther, I had always thought of as a ski town high up in the mountains. That’s sort of true. It is a ski town, and it’s generally in the Alps, but it’s surrounded by farmland. As a town, it didn’t look especially noteworthy, although I didn’t actually get off the train to look at it.

Interlaken is a nice-looking town in a beautiful setting, but my hotel reservation was waiting for me halfway up the mountain. From Interlaken Ost station, I took another train to Lauterbrunnen, a cable car to Grütschalp, and a narrow-gauge train along the edge of nothingness to Mürren.

There are goats in Mürren.

I’m staying at the creaky and atmospheric Hotel Blumental. Manuel from Fawlty Towers carried my bag to my room. Really, I swear it’s him.

I had dinner at Stägerstübli, where the owner generously accommodated my attempts at German. Horse steaks are on the menu, but I went with the chicken mit pfeffersauce.