For the last four years I have produced the travel TV show “Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations”, ran around the world, ate some funky things and ended up moving from New York City to Berlin, Germany….. I’m a TV Producer, Camera woman, Travel Journalist and now humble foreigner in a new city!
January 3, 2009
-
The restroom on the Deutsche Bahn
Suddenly, I got the urge to use the train restroom on a German train. I wouldn’t even think of such things were I still living in NY. Even on our prestigious, pristine, magnificent, Godly AMTRAK……ok, who am I kidding….riding Amtrak (for those who have traveled in Europe) is like your grandfather picking you up in his 1982 Cadillac and expecting you to still ogle over it’s fabulous, but raggedy-leather seats. Amtrak is the pits. It’s dusty, it’s stinks like a convalescent home and even the nachos suck. In fact, Amtrak may be the reason why we have a FINANCIAL CRISIS….No seriously hear me out! The North East Corridor carries all the jaba-jabas from NY to Washington…hmmmmm if I were to have to travel day in and day out on that schlep of a choo-choo, would I invest in a greater American Economy? I think not.
ANYWAY, I need to use the restroom, so I saunter off to the lavatory car. Yup, it takes up at least half a car. I notice a group of people standing outside the loo, just enjoying a little leg room. Even the air around a toilet in Germany is sweet. I find the door and realize I am in for a special treat…it’s one of those Star Trek restrooms….I go for the button and press…oh so softly. A large automatic door opens with the hydraulic sound of a space fart. But as it opens, creeping along, I hear not Lieutenant Uhura nor Captain Kirk, but a little German whimper….
“nein, nein, nein”
It’s gains sound.
“NEIN. NEIN. NEIN”
I now see the bathroom in all its space age grandiosity. It’s huge enough to throw a New Years Party In. Suddenly, I realize that there is a woman sitting in the corner, six miles from the door. BAD TOILET PLACEMENT. And yet, this damn door is still creeping open. She’s frantic. I panic and try in a desperate attempt to close the damn automatic door by hand. Now everyone on the bench before the restroom is looking straight at her. I mean their seats are facing her. LONGEST MOMENT EVER. I tug at the door and we literally have to wait for it to stop the opening process. The door pauses, as if to say “be patient my friend, good things come to those who wait” and then giggles a bit…and begins to close itself again with the same patience and German engineering as everything else in this country has. Slowly our distraught Fraulein slips out of view, I wave goodbye…..
I’m about to leave, because I cannot face the aftermath, when I turn around and see a small child and his mother reaching for the button.
The whole train car gasps “NEIN NEIN NEIN!” I throw the child’s clumsy paw away and the mother shoots me a horrible glance. Then in awful German I try and say that WE (this lovely group of spectators) have seen horrible things here today. WE have witnessed the powerlessness of man against the machine. The door will always win, I say.
As I retreat to my seat, I remember my childhood. The good old Greyhound Bus that carried me from Connecticut to New York City. I always sat in the back of the bus to feel the bumps and to be closer to that old splashy toilet. Back in the day, just having a restroom was luxury enough. No one really needed to use it, not during the ride at least. Maybe Amtrak isn’t so bad…like Grandpa’s Caddy, it’s familiar!
