9/10/02
It started raining at about 11:00 that evening, and didn�t stop all night. Since we were so close to the train tracks we were awoken about every fifteen to thirty minutes by a passing locomotive. That became very annoying, and I finally fumbled through my backpack to find toilet paper to stuff in my ears. These crude earplugs helped a little, but not much. I think it was about 8:00 when I woke up and started packing my backpack inside the tent. This chore took about thirty minutes while I was waiting for the rain to let up a little so I could take my tent down without the inside getting completely soaked. Since I was done with everything but the tent, and it was still raining, I decided to put on my rain suit and go for a walk to get a picture of the Loreley. Yesterday when I had stopped at that kiosk I bought a postcard with the poem of the Loreley.
{The Loreley (translated by Mark Twain)}
I cannot divine what it meaneth
This haunting nameless pain;
A tale of the bygone ages
Weeps brooding through my brain.
The faint air cools in the gloaming,
And peaceful flows the Rhine,
The thirsty summits are drinking
The sunset�s flooding wine.
The loviest maiden is sitting
High-thrones in yon blue air,
Her golden jewels are shining
She combs her golden hair;
She combs with a cob that is golden,
And sings a weerd refrain;
That steeps in a deadly enchantment
The listener�s ravished brain.
The doomed in his drifting shallop
Is tranced with the sad sweet tone,
He sees not the yawning breakers.
He sees but the maid alone.
The pitiless billows engulf him!
So perish sailor and bark,
And this, with her baleful singing,
Is the Loreley�s gruesome work.
I sat and watched a barge go by as I thought of the poem. Luckily the captain was able to shy away from the tempting lure of the beautiful maiden and keep him and his crew from perishing in those �yawning breakers.� I smiled to myself because of the splendor of the whole situation and walked away.
By the time I got back to the tent the rain had slowed to a light sprinkle so I stuffed my home into it�s bag and was ready to go. Just about that time Garist peeked his head out and said, �Good Morning.� We talked about how neither of us had slept much, but his �light sleeping� wife snoozed like a baby. Then he asked if I had eaten breakfast, I said no, and he insisted that I come into the van and dine with them. They had already had their tea, but insisted on brewing me some coffee. And then we ate. I had a bread roll with butter and jam. Then Tryn made me eat a concoction that they called porridge (this was actually like a cluster type cereal) covered with a vanilla type of yogurt. It was great. Then Garist made me try another type of bread and I put bacon on top of it. This bacon was not cooked like we do it here in the States. Garist said, �In America you cook bacon, we don�t.� This kind of scared me because I know eating raw pork isn�t always the best thing on a person�s stomach. But as soon as I tasted it I could tell that it had been smoked, and I was quite relieved. There were also two types of cheeses and another type of bread. I had to choke down the last bites because I didn�t want to leave waste. Needless to say, I was very full when I got back on the road.
The night before I had decided that I needed to try and return the generosity shown to me by this Dutch couple. Since Garist had been a librarian I figured he was well read. I thought that he would enjoy my book by Henry David Thoreau�Walden and other Writings. After breakfast I asked if they had heard of Thoreau but he didn�t think that he had. Once he saw the title he realized that he had heard of but never read any of it. I had wrote a note inside thanking them for their kindness that I hope will remind them of our day together. He added it to the other twenty-five books he had with him that he had already read and said, �Thank you very much.� They filled my empty water containers, we shook hands, and then we said goodbye. He asked how much my pack weighed and I said that it was about fifty pounds. He tried to lift it and said some Dutch explicative to himself. Then he turned to his wife and said something like, �Impossible to walk with that,� and I think they were both impressed.
