Auslanders: Blitzfahrt

I am not going to be drawn into some kind of a pissing match between Germany and Italy.

Or Germany and France.

Or Germany and Holland or Belgium or any other country.

First of all, Germany doesn’t need my help. They can piss just fine on their own. Plus, they have established a fairly impressive track record for defending themselves as it is. Assuming the best defense is a good offense.

Second, I don’t want to bust up the good thing the Europeans have going over there, what with being the world’s economic powerhouse and all that. They should stay together. For the children.

But I have to admit that one of the best things about living in Germany has nothing to do with Germany and everything to do with all those other countries you can drive to in a day or less.

In my homeland, it is not uncommon to run into somebody who has had, for whatever reason, cause to drive to Thunder Bay. During that conversation, you will learn that it takes eighteen hours to drive there from Toronto. That’s longer than it took for the Nazis to roll through the Low Countries, and they stopped for a meal. And Thunder Bay is still in Ontario. If you thought it would be fun to drive from one end to the other, you had better take a week or so off from work.  

Canada is so huge, so enormous and gigantic, that we who live there can’t even begin to understand it. If every man, woman and child in Canada were to spread out so that they were touching hands with at least two other people, all together we wouldn’t fill Prince Edward Island. And if you don’t believe me, go ahead and set it up. You’ll see.

We were in Europe for about a week until we decided to take the place for a test drive, just to compare.

England was our destination.

Now, for purposes of comparison, if you want to go to England from my hometown, you have to drop a few hundreds of dollars for airline tickets, go to the airport, sit there for a few hours, maybe buy a seven dollar sandwich, cram yourself on the plane and try to make yourself unconscious for eight hours or so. And when you finally do get to England, it will have taken so long you won’t even care anymore so you’ll just turn around and go home.

If you want to get to England from Dusseldorf, it is a much different process. You get in the car and drive forty odd minutes to Holland. Those minutes are odd because you are passing towns with names like Dong and Titz.

Once in Holland, you turn towards Belgium and then in an hour or two you are through Holland and Belgium both and you’re in France.

Three and some hours later, you’re in Calais and if you can afford the Chunnel, it’s only another thirty minutes and you’re driving in England, almost as enthusiastic about being there are you were when you left. Maybe more so if you stop at Tesco’s and buy a packet of crisps.  I recommend Chicken Tikka.

My kids couldn’t believe that they had burned through so many countries so quickly. They’d had barely enough time to complain about anything.

“It’s like driving through Clinton!” they said. “Blink, and you miss Belgium.”

I was more excited that they were, however, because I knew that driving to England was only the beginning.

We were going to be here for a year with a car of our own, a wallet full of credit cards, and just enough information to get us into trouble, one country at a time.