Standing at the bahnhof getting muddled by the route map I was approached by a gentleman carrying several weighty tomes under his arm.He spoke to me in German ( fair enough I was in Berlin) but once I explained I could nicht verstehen he spoke in perfect english. "what shall I do?" "pardon" "what do you want me to do?" "eh" "Sir you are the oldest one here , and in my culture we are taught to respect our elders, now please command me as to what I should do" Now hindsight is a wonderful thing and on reflection I should have said get drunk, smoke fags and play rock n roll records but all I could think of was. "be nice to people" and off he went . Hopefully I did the right thing, I do seem to attract the weirdos.My boy was laughing his head off.
Them bahnhofs are scary. Especially when the train you need in 1979 goes to Moscow. And you need to remember to get off before the border.
