Summer 2002. I changed trains in Schwerin on the way from Berlin to Hamburg. 4 hours to kill. “Okay,” I said to myself, “let’s see what this place is about.” Setting off down the street directly across from the Bahnhof, the first thing I encountered (disregarding the pizza place) was a large, squarish lake. I walked counterclockwise around the lake and veered right. Down that street or the next I found an old cathedral. I wanted to go in and have a look but they were either closing up or engaged in some activity that precluded disrespectful american touristen, so I was denied entry. I wandered further down the street, took a few turns, and found myself in the middle of a plaza. In the center was a sort of obelisk with an engraving on it. The engraving depicted a prince-like figure on a horse, travelling up the road to a castle. Peasants lined the road on either side of the prince, most of them bowing down humbly, except for one who was either mooning him or sticking out her tongue. Besides this, the oddest thing about the picture was the perfectly engraved rendering of the horse’s asshole, which had a very intense depth to it. It was worn away as if many people had stuck their fingers into it. Honestly, it had an almost hypnotic quality. I finally broke away from the obelisk and headed out of the plaza and down some long, anonymous street until I got the sense that I was near water again. At the end of the street I could see the water but I couldn’t quite get to it, so I followed the next street around the corner and discovered a huge castle fortress on an island. I went over the bridge connecting the island to the mainland and took a look at the castle fortress. The courtyard was impressive, and from the garden I found a path leading down to a bridge that connected to a much smaller island containing an angsty-looking german girl with a very large dog. I smiled at her and she frowned back, which made her somehow instantly desirable. The leaves rustled in the early evening lakewind. I like to imagine that the two of us shared a moment on that island, but the reality is that we totally totally did not. After that I took a few pictures, quit the island, and purchased a tasty pink sausage from a roadside hut in view of the castle and another (!) obelisk. It was getting late, so I headed back to the train depot. There I met a group of american students who were on a singing tour of Germany. At first they thought I was german and were wary of me, but once I convinced them that I was american we became fast friends. An elderly german gentleman approached our circle and drunkenly accosted us. I seemed to have the best command of the language in the group, so I explained to him that what he was doing didn’t go and didn’t stand. He wandered away. At that moment I realized that my train had been in the station for five minutes already. Shouting schoene reise to the americans, I bolted up the bahnhof stairs and hurled myself through the doors of the train only milliseconds before they closed. The conductor frowned and I took a seat. 45 minutes later the train gently derailed and I was trapped in a car for the duration of the night with seven renaissance musicians who played variations of “greensleeves” on authentic instruments, before we were all marched down the elevated track by police and firefighters to a tiny ladder. I waited at the bottom of the ladder with about 300 other people for special buses to arrive, and when they finally arrived I was placed on a bus with 60 rowdy youths who sang the theme to “Pippi Langstruempfe” all the way back to Hamburg.