Apprentice Traveller

Enough of the gloom and doom of war days and the early occupation period. Let us get onto how I became a traveller.
This tale precedes and follows my previous post 'When Camping - don't forget the Utensils'. Having mastered, more or less, the riddle of water transportation I had to progress to mastering land transportation. Given I had an excellent teacher - my sister - and between the two of us we had just one stirling steel horse: a one gear, no suspension, no frills, all purpose road & mountain bike. It was not long before I became very proficient in pedalling selfsame contraption. Couldn't reach the saddle yet, but there were good prospect for me growing into the role.

The steely speed-monster and I

It was during the summer school holidays, always a restless period where we dreamt up untold adventures, the three musketeers decided to embark on a road trip. Beats me why our parents let us go, nobody would do that nowadays. But then, times were different then. We gathered some clothing, a blanket each, a couple of sandwiches and whatever pocket money we had, really only a few cents, we set off into the wild blue yonder.
Not a care in the world and full of optimism. We headed east-south-east from our nearest town, Koenigs Wusterhausen. We pedalled all day thinking we would reach Poland or Czechoslovakia soon, but in reality we cover only about fifty-odd kilometres, ending up in the town of Luebben by early evening. By then we had consumed all our 'provisions' we'd brought along and were looking for FOOD and some accommodation for the night, well some sort of bed to sleep in.
I guess we were very lucky indeed, the Kasernierte Volkspolizei (paramilitary police force since neither East nor West Germany were allowed to have an army at that stage) were in town for some sort of exercise.
Having been told to always ask a policeman if you are in trouble, we approached them for advice.
The soldiers, sorry policemen, looked rather bewildered at our motley outfit. A junior officer strode up, having noticed the 'commotion'. As Germans are, he barked: "Was ist los?" (What's up).
The soldiers explained and he took charge. "OK boys, first thing you need is a good feed" - one prime requirement for a German to keep going is food - good food and plenty of it!

Gulaschkanone - still in use today

So, first call was to the 'Gulaschkanone' - a peculiar German word for a field kitchen. All it is is a large kettle mounted on a trailer with, then, a wood fire underneath. Gourmet cooking at its best! Low and behold, soldiers are fed properly. They'd cooked up a stew of gigantic proportion and it contained plenty of MEAT.
The officer shoved everybody out of the way, got us to the front of the queue - then had conniptions because we didn't have the required utensils, i.e. spoon, fork and container to have the food in. He barked an order to a sergeant to obtain three sets of implements - on the double. We were fed till we burst - boys will be boys and eat till there is no more room.
Then we were shown to a tent, rather large accommodating about twenty people or so, and told you will sleep in these three 'beds'. The army supplied us with pillows and blankets and Mr Officer said: "bedtime for you boys". No sooner our heads hit the pillow, we were out like lights.
Next morning we were fed again: boiled eggs, rye bread, cold cuts and - low and behold - cheese! Never had the stuff - it tasted awful! But, it was food, so down it went.
Mr Officer decided we were too young for coffee, so water was the drink of choice. After we were fed and watered we got a huge lecture from Mr Officer. We were told to get on our bikes and head straight back home - no mucking about, no detours, no sightseeing. Go home to your parents and STAY home! You are far to young to engage in such foolish behaviour.
Well, talk about three boys limping home with their tails between their legs. And weren't our parents ever so glad to have us home after just one night away - mean parents!