WanderLost

    Following a brisk walk to the train station at 4:30 am, past groups of revelers enjoying the holiday and planning to push their Friday/Saturday festivities into the late a.m., I arrive at the train station. I’m early, only to discover that the train, in true Spanish fashion, is scheduled to leave at least 20 minutes late. The place is empty in the middle, great floor polished and shining, with people clustered round the edges, in groups, pairs, or solitary. I sit down on a peripheral bench, and contemplate my upcoming trip.

Despite having ample amounts of time, I still feel on edge– that near-departure nervousness that only recedes once in one’s assigned seat. The thrum of a warmed up train vibrates through the air like electricity, and the girl at the end of my bench taps her foot nervously, sending more vibrations through me. I practice deep breathing techniques, then lean back to watch the station slowly begin to fill up, and the clock hands inch onward.

The train arrives at 5:30 am, hissing up to the platform. When I enter, the light in the car is muted, with that special almost-hush that hangs around groups of strangers sleeping together. I have a window seat, the other empty, and snuggle in by myself. Warm air comes from the vents– comfortable and soothing. At first I watch the scenery roll by in the gray dawn, but then the gentle rocking lulls me asleep. I half doze, and half contemplate– past, present, future.

Dawn breaks ahead of the train and I see pink sky and clouds. Small towns roll by, overlooked by stone castles on hills, some with towers crumbling, but all whispering back to a past of clanking armor and lute music. On the other side, the Mediterranean Sea spread sout in a flat silvery shiny sheet.

I get into Barcelona on time, despite the late start. In the metro, construction is holding up the line. Nearby, a group of English-speakers try to get information out of a nearby metro employee with little luck.
“Doesn’t anyone here speak English?” one asks in exasperation.
“I do,” I respond after a moment’s pause, stepping forward, and repeating their question to the woman. We begin a relay of words, English-Spanish-English, with me in the middle. The tourists, not wanting to wait for delays, argue among themselves and leave. The woman and I chat for a few moments, then the metro appears (almost as though mocking the impatient Americans). She says goodbye, making a light-hearted comment about wishing she spoke English, and warning me about pickpockets. I step inside with a smile on my face.

From the metro station I find my hostel, chatting with a nice girl from Peru at the desk. Walking back down the street, I recognize the architecture and realize I am in the immediate neighborhood of Gaudi’s Casa Mitla. Happy about that, and happy joining my friends a few blocks down.

We have coffee, then take a walk down Las Ramblas, chatting the whole while. It’s crowded, but just as I remember- people, street performers, and flowers flowers flowers. We stumble upon the Plaza de George Orwell, with a modern sculpture. Follow small streets to the front of the cathedral where large groups of Sardona dancers perform. Then twist through the crowd at the Christmas market. We find a restaurant, order a huge dish of delicious paella, and talk over it for hours.

We move on– the Sagrada Familia, Poble Espagna, the Joan Miro museum, the Olympic stadium. We marvel at the gorgeous view of orange sky and pink clouds over the bright city, a strip of the Mediterranean shining on the horizon, lampposts around us glowing in the darkening light. Later followed food, more talk, and ice cream under Christmas lights strung through pedestrian alleyways.

It’s 12:20 of a Friday afternoon and I am at the train station in Prague waiting in line to buy my ticket to Dresden. My three months of allowed tourism is up tomorrow, so I’m heading over the border and back to get my passport stamped so I can walk the streets without fear of deportation. The train I want leaves in ten minutes but the line isn’t moving, and I’m getting antsy. The lady at the front of the line is talking and talking in Czech to the woman behind the glass, apparently asking about every train ever scheduled to leave Prague in the history of trains, and the rest of us behind her tap our feet and roll our eyes at the clock, its hands marching relentlessly onwards.
Finally I switch to another line and buy my ticket just in time, clutching it in my hands and walking briskly through the station. I make it up the stairs and onto the platform and I have a flashback to my last European train trip, how we waited on the platforms in the snowy cold of Germany and Switzerland, packs on our backs, train schedules in our hands. It’s not snowing now and I get on the train and have five glorious minutes before it leaves the station.
The city of Prague rolls gently past my window, then outer Prague, and then suddenly it’s all trees and bushes and little Czech towns. The houses are mostly small, some even one-room tiny in a row on the hillside. Most are white or cream colored with that Praguian style red tile roof, although occasional walls of bright green or orange break the monotony. Stone and brick show through the cracked and peeling whitewash. Muddy yards with patches of soggy grass. Sad yellow dog lying on a doorstep. Black chickens beside a plastic swimming pool. Smoke rising from the chimney. Each town has its own small stone church— the wide arch, single spire, rows of narrow windows.
The train follows the river the whole way, almost along the same level. Petite houses nestle between the river and the rocky sides of the rising hills. Farther on, the hills get rockier and more dramatic, yet still the little colored houses clustering in the cracks and folds.
We finally leave the river with its toy-like houses and enter the city. Layers upon layers of buildings, railroad tracks, poles, wires. Leaving the train station, I see an interesting-looking dome in the near distance and head towards it. On the way I run a gauntlet of outlet shops, growing bigger and bigger, straining the flow of humanity from the train station— retaining the money and letting the people trickle out at the end, wide-eyed and dazed, arms filled with shopping bags.
The first dome is a church, and next to it an impressive government building. More spires loom in the distance and I wend my way towards them, bypassing strange landmarks such as a statue of a man holding grapes while hugging a mule, and a fountain depicting a young man attempting to pick up several alarmed-looking geese.
Crossing the road, I come to another square. At the end of it is the Frauenkirche, a church completely bombed to rubble during the war. It has since been rebuilt. Its facade is a light tan color, speckled with darker bricks— originals dug from the ruins and painstakingly put back in their original places. A nearby construction crane looms in the background. The square is quiet, nearly empty. A woman in a red coat stands with her back to me, watching one man working alone, placing cobblestones. The clink clink of his efforts echo across the square.
Inside the church is beautiful, overwhelmingly white and pure. The silver pipes of the organ gleam, surrounded by twisting white and gold designs. On one side, rows of candles flicker, and tourists pour in a steady stream to light more. I join them, then walk back out into the square.
Continuing onward, I walk up some stairs and am suddenly confronted by the waterfront. Amazing old buildings stretch along the waterfront behind me. Nearby is the bridge, and above it, a large swarm of black birds. Like a whirlwind of black leaves they rise, whirl and dive together, twisting gracefully as though every move has been consciously choreographed. Fascinating. Eerie. The ghosts of Dresden above the grave of bombed-out ruins now rebuilt. Doesn’t matter that there are cranes in the sky; memory goes deep.
I walk along the waterfront, across the bridge and back again, taking photos. The sky is overcast above me, steel gray, and the birds still glide in it, giving an occasional caw. A man sits in a tunnel archway playing the accordion— not a lively tune, but hopeful. I toss some money in his case because his song matches my mood and keep on walking, soaking up the dark grandeur of the stone buildings around me.
At last it’s time to catch my train, and the procession of buildings and sights reverses as I turn my feet back towards the station. It’s getting dark, with shadows starting to stretch across the squares. Then I’m sitting in the train, watching Dresden slowly trickle by my window, the buildings getting shorter and scarcer, until we are alongside the river once again. It quickly grows too dark to see and I hurtle along in the night towards the bright city of Prague, yet the dark towers of Dresden rear up in my mind’s eye, and I can almost hear the whisper of wings and a faint caw as a slight chill of memory runs down my spine.

Poem: Frauenkirche

The church of Dresden rises again
against the cloudy sky,
crossed by a construction crane.
A woman in a red coat
stands with her back to me.
Clink clink echoes across the empty square,
the sound of one man working.