Folk Song Welcomes Weary American Travelers
Geraldine Birch
June 11, 2008
The lyrics of the folk song, "City of New Orleans," keep coming back to me as I recall our recent trip to Germany:
"Good morning America how are you?
Say don´t you know me, I´m your native son
I´m the train they call the city of New Orleans
I´ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done."
We had been zipping through the green beauty of northern Germany for about 10 days and beginning to feel the effects of too much time on the road with nary a moment to launder a single piece of clothing. And, yes, there was the need for clean underwear.
More than that, we needed to relax a bit before my husband and I headed for the U-boat Archive in Cuxhaven, on the North Sea, where I had scheduled several days of research for a novel I am writing. As we headed south out of Kiel, we picked a spot on the map—Bad Segeberg, 50 kilometers northeast of Hamburg—and headed for it. Surely, we hoped, a laundry must be there and a quiet little hotel.
We drove into the small town and found an ordinary-looking supermarket. Undeterred, we parked the car and headed up the street to an area where we saw vehicle traffic blocked off. When we turned the corner, we realized with surprise that we were in a plaza, abounded by shops and restaurants.
At one end of the plaza was a towering brick church, about 200 years old and a beautiful fountain where the plaza widened, beckoning adults and children alike. Even though it was about 11 a.m. on a mid-week morning, the area was filled with shoppers, particularly young mothers with babies in strollers.
We breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps we could find a hotel near this charming plaza—and we hoped a laundry! We stopped, had a good cup of strong German coffee and a delicious apple strudel. After that, we walked into the closed off area and peeked in shop windows that displayed moderately priced clothing and jewelry—no Gucci´s here, just middle-class merchandise. As we walked farther into the plaza, we found a small hotel with its own restaurant tucked between a shoe store and a fruit stand. For 60 Euros a night, the room was clean, spacious, and there was even a small patio with two pots overflowing with colorful impatiens.
Bad Segeberg turned out to be more than we could have dreamed. The next day when we asked the housekeeper where we could find a laundry, she answered in very clear English that she would do it for us, and sure enough, when we returned to the room, our clothes were neatly folded on a chair.
With laundry done, we were free to explore. We set out on a hike, heading toward a large lake and walked by the old church. Unexpectedly, we found ourselves in the midst of a cemetery where many gravestones were more than a hundred years old. Each small plot was filled with flowers—tuberous begonias, geraniums, and flowering vines. No plot seemed unattended, even if the graves were decades old.
On Saturday, we found the square to be filled with shoppers. We were surprised to also see children dressed as Native Americans with theatre make-up on their faces parading around the plaza. They were advertising a Wild West extravaganza set for that evening at the city´s amphitheatre—something akin to a turn-of-the-century Buffalo Bill Cody production. People at the hotel told us about the event, but since we are from the southwest and have seen our share of rodeos, we politely declined.
Suddenly amid the parade, we heard music, American music, at the other end of the plaza and wandered over to find a band of three men, the Little Country Gentlemen, singing American country western songs as if they had just arrived from Nashville.
During a short break, my husband walked to the bandstand and asked where they were from. He was surprised to learn they were German. The lead singer was an English teacher at a German high school. In turn, they asked where my husband was from and he said, "America, from Arizona."
The band began to play again and struck up a song acknowledging our presence. As the lead singer sang, "Good morning America how are you," I felt a sudden longing for the wide open spaces of our Arizona landscape.
The next morning, hanging on the hallway door handle of our room was a paper headband with a feather stuck in it, a souvenir from the show—a small acknowledgment, perhaps, to two Americans far from home.
"Good morning America how are you?
Say don´t you know me, I´m your native son
I´m the train they call the city of New Orleans
I´ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done."
We had been zipping through the green beauty of northern Germany for about 10 days and beginning to feel the effects of too much time on the road with nary a moment to launder a single piece of clothing. And, yes, there was the need for clean underwear.
More than that, we needed to relax a bit before my husband and I headed for the U-boat Archive in Cuxhaven, on the North Sea, where I had scheduled several days of research for a novel I am writing. As we headed south out of Kiel, we picked a spot on the map—Bad Segeberg, 50 kilometers northeast of Hamburg—and headed for it. Surely, we hoped, a laundry must be there and a quiet little hotel.
We drove into the small town and found an ordinary-looking supermarket. Undeterred, we parked the car and headed up the street to an area where we saw vehicle traffic blocked off. When we turned the corner, we realized with surprise that we were in a plaza, abounded by shops and restaurants.
At one end of the plaza was a towering brick church, about 200 years old and a beautiful fountain where the plaza widened, beckoning adults and children alike. Even though it was about 11 a.m. on a mid-week morning, the area was filled with shoppers, particularly young mothers with babies in strollers.
We breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps we could find a hotel near this charming plaza—and we hoped a laundry! We stopped, had a good cup of strong German coffee and a delicious apple strudel. After that, we walked into the closed off area and peeked in shop windows that displayed moderately priced clothing and jewelry—no Gucci´s here, just middle-class merchandise. As we walked farther into the plaza, we found a small hotel with its own restaurant tucked between a shoe store and a fruit stand. For 60 Euros a night, the room was clean, spacious, and there was even a small patio with two pots overflowing with colorful impatiens.
Bad Segeberg turned out to be more than we could have dreamed. The next day when we asked the housekeeper where we could find a laundry, she answered in very clear English that she would do it for us, and sure enough, when we returned to the room, our clothes were neatly folded on a chair.
With laundry done, we were free to explore. We set out on a hike, heading toward a large lake and walked by the old church. Unexpectedly, we found ourselves in the midst of a cemetery where many gravestones were more than a hundred years old. Each small plot was filled with flowers—tuberous begonias, geraniums, and flowering vines. No plot seemed unattended, even if the graves were decades old.
On Saturday, we found the square to be filled with shoppers. We were surprised to also see children dressed as Native Americans with theatre make-up on their faces parading around the plaza. They were advertising a Wild West extravaganza set for that evening at the city´s amphitheatre—something akin to a turn-of-the-century Buffalo Bill Cody production. People at the hotel told us about the event, but since we are from the southwest and have seen our share of rodeos, we politely declined.
Suddenly amid the parade, we heard music, American music, at the other end of the plaza and wandered over to find a band of three men, the Little Country Gentlemen, singing American country western songs as if they had just arrived from Nashville.
During a short break, my husband walked to the bandstand and asked where they were from. He was surprised to learn they were German. The lead singer was an English teacher at a German high school. In turn, they asked where my husband was from and he said, "America, from Arizona."
The band began to play again and struck up a song acknowledging our presence. As the lead singer sang, "Good morning America how are you," I felt a sudden longing for the wide open spaces of our Arizona landscape.
The next morning, hanging on the hallway door handle of our room was a paper headband with a feather stuck in it, a souvenir from the show—a small acknowledgment, perhaps, to two Americans far from home.