Member-only story
Adventure at the Polish Border with ‘Robert Redford’ & ‘John Candy’
It doesn’t take two weeks to drive through Spain, France, and Germany, my highlighted route to Poland, but that’s how long I’d been roaring across Europe in a rented Renault, living off fast food, spending nights in youth hostels, going anywhere the Rand McNally map I’d bought in Madrid unfolded on the passenger seat led.
My brother was flying into Warsaw from New York for the reunion with our father’s extended family, and I hoped to get there the day before he arrived.
At the Polish border, I assumed my position in the queue of cars waiting to cross. When the one ahead of me sped off, I moved up and fished in my pocket for my passport and proffered it to a blonde epauletted German border official resembling actor Robert Redford, who disappeared with it inside a boxy metallic guard station.
He returned a minute later.
“Papiere für das Auto.”
You know that look people give when they have no idea what you’re talking about? That was how I responded.
“Papiere für das Auto,” he repeated.
“Sprechen Sie Englisch?” I asked.
“Nein,” he replied.
I thought that odd considering everyone — and I mean everyone — I met in Germany spoke English.
