Breaking Chronology

So I realize we're a little behind - we're actually in Cambridge now, just so you don't worry. But we can't tell you about that until we tell you about all the cool places on the continent we saw before we came here. Since Amsterdam came after Brussels, it would be the next logical story to tell. But Laura has called dibs on blogging Amsterdam because (as she has informed me) it involves too much art to which I would be patently unable to do justice, being the uneducated cretin that I am.

But, say I, what need has our postmodern generation of a worn-out metanarrative and a meaningless chronology? Actually, one of my professors said that once - I didn't really understand it at the time, but it does give me license(ce?) to tell things out of order, so you pre-postmodernists out there will just have to deal.

While staying at my brother's house in Ladenburg, Germany, we borrowed bicycles from his landlords to ride the 6 miles along the beautiful Neckar River to Heidelberg, that romantic jewel of the valley. After 10 minutes of pointing and laughing (the only true universal language) with Heinz, the very non-English-speaking owner of the bike, we embarked on a beautiful ride through the German autumn (which is incidentally pretty similar to the autumn in central Illinois). Unfortunately, before we got to Heidelberg, I got that sensation of bumpiness that cannot be wholly attributed to cobblestone paths, even in Europe. I had a flat tire.

It's little things like this that cut you down to size when you're travelling - normally, this would be no big deal. But halfway across the world, away from your supply base, where you don't even speak the language, there's nothing to do but stop riding and start walking the bike back the 3 miles or so to Ladenburg (I told Laura she could go ahead and finish the ride, noble husband that I am, but she steadfastly stayed with me, loyal wife that she is).

After we had walked the bikes perhaps half a mile, we came to a crossroads where an elderly German couple was looking at a map and a signpost, evidently trying to decide which way to go. They had huge luggage cases on the backs of their bikes and looked like they were going on a pretty long ride. As we went past them, the husband stopped me and asked me what was wrong with our bikes (by 'asked,' I mean he pointed at the bike and spoke in German. Evidently they didn't speak English either). After a few minutes of more pointing and other extraneous charades (no laughing by this point - we were getting tired), we conveyed that my tube had burst, and the couple immediately went to work - fixing my bike. I told the husband he didn't need to, in that halfway insincere way you do when you really want someone to help, but feel that odd bit of irrational individualism even though you're completely helpless at that moment. Then I realized he didn't understand me anyway, so I just shut up. While his wife found a new inner tube that fit my bike, he removed the wheel, tire and tube while occasionally asking me questions I did not understand. Then he changed the tube, inflated the tire, put it back on the bike, and began looking at his map again, as though nothing had happened.

Laura and I didn't know what to say (except 'danke'...about a hundred times), so we just tried to look thankful. We didn't have any money on us, didn't know how to offer to pay for the new tube, and suspected they wouldn't have taken it anyway. As the woman said what seemed to be some form of salutation to us, I noticed she was wearing a cross necklace. It appeared that we had just been Good-Samaritaned.

As we rode back, relieved that we wouldn't have to try to explain to Heinz why his tire was flat, I thought more about that little dose of altruism we'd received. Sometimes it seems like random acts of kindness on the side of the road are a thing of the past, but it happened to us through people who knew without a doubt that they had nothing to gain from us clueless Americans and a perfectly good inner tube to lose. So if any of you out there are contemplating your good deed for the week/fortnight/year, save it for somebody who can't possibly repay it - perhaps someone who doesn't even speak the language. Not because you'll feel better, but because that person was me.