Money Changer in Rostock
It was 1974. Those of you who remember that era may wonder what on earth we were doing in Rostock during the height of the Cold War.
Well it started out innocently enough. The Norwegian and the American decided one day to hitchhike from Copenhagen to Germany. Alas, we neglected to bring a map. But how could we go wrong? Just head south, and all the traffic would be going toward the ferry at Rødbyhvn. Or so we thought.
We accidentally stumbled into Rostock on the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, a State holiday celebrated throughout the German Democratic Republic. It seemed that everyone in Rostock was hanging out, drinking cheap beer, eating cheap chicken. We actually blended in pretty well because no one was expecting to see Western interlopers. And expectation affects perception, perhaps more so than we would like to admit.
We befriended the kid in the photo above. Or perhaps he befriended us. His name is Manfred. For six US dollars, he sold us a heaping pile of Ost-Marks. Now we too could pig out on cheap chicken and cheap beer. And we did.
Money Changer in Rostock
It was 1974. Those of you who remember that era may wonder what on earth we were doing in Rostock during the height of the Cold War.
Well it started out innocently enough. The Norwegian and the American decided one day to hitchhike from Copenhagen to Germany. Alas, we neglected to bring a map. But how could we go wrong? Just head south, and all the traffic would be going toward the ferry at Rødbyhvn. Or so we thought.
We accidentally stumbled into Rostock on the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, a State holiday celebrated throughout the German Democratic Republic. It seemed that everyone in Rostock was hanging out, drinking cheap beer, eating cheap chicken. We actually blended in pretty well because no one was expecting to see Western interlopers. And expectation affects perception, perhaps more so than we would like to admit.
We befriended the kid in the photo above. Or perhaps he befriended us. His name is Manfred. For six US dollars, he sold us a heaping pile of Ost-Marks. Now we too could pig out on cheap chicken and cheap beer. And we did.