Another fond farewell: The wonders of Westerkappeln

It’s hard to believe, but next week will make three months since we began this wandering tour of Europe. Supposedly a tourist can’t spend more than 90 days in Europe without a visa or some kind of residency permit, but we’re fairly confident that this law is rarely enforced against law-abiding Americans. And considering the fact that my three companions are all traveling with German (EU) passports, I feel like I’m drifting somewhere on the safer side of the grey area. Either way, I’m granting myself the benefit of the doubt, and moving onward at full speed.

On Wednesday we departed Westerkappeln and the house of chaos without incident. We’re also delighted to report that we left the house without bacterial infections, despite the proliferation which I described earlier. On the other hand, we did walk away with untold numbers of mosquito bites that we are eager to see heal and fade away, as well as a trove of memories which are unlikely to diminish for many years to come.

How could anyone ever forget supermom, who reigned supreme with her quartet of diaper-bound dependents, all clinging to her like barnacles on the mother ship? It’s nearly miraculous, the way a person can rise to such heroic strength when confronted with the circumstances that require it, such as two pairs of twins less than two years apart. As relieved as I am to be moving on and out of this raging mayhem, I will always remember this fertile family like something of a natural phenomenon, like the eighth Wonder of the World.

For our last night on their farm, we held a long awaited barbecue in a makeshift fire pit in the direction of the horse pasture. Beer, sausage and potato salad, not surprisingly, were served in great abundance. The children, all four of theirs and both of ours, stayed up irresponsibly late, but the grilling and drinking went on into the wee hours.

Based on Pedro’s report in the morning, it sounded as if the drinking in particular went on with prolonged immoderation. When I asked at breakfast, he said they were up till “one and a half.” And after breakfast, he promptly went back to bed. Now I’m about the last person to criticize someone’s English when it’s not their native tongue, but I spoke to Pedro enough times to be quite convinced of his fluency, and I know that he would not describe the time of day as “one and a half” unless he were severely impaired by something like a pounding hangover.

Speaking of impressive ESL, we were also joined at the barbecue by another Norwegian family member in his early teens. If you’ve never had the pleasure of listening to a Scandinavian youth speak English, it’s rather uncanny. The combination of a very effective schooling system and an extremely small population of Norwegian speakers means that young Norwegians learn to speak impeccable English with an unnatural flair for the theatrical.

Raised and educated with the films of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, these Scandic kids can speak flawless American English without an accent, but are also able to feign all manner of irregular accents and idiomatic expressions, from inner city eubonics a’la Samuel L. Jackson, to the stuttering jargon of John Turturro or the west coast duderisms of Jeff Bridges.

Grandpa’s understated automotive aptitude still remains one of my fondest memories from the house of havoc. I spent a good part of the month poking around in granddad’s labyrinthine workshop in search of tools and spare parts, and it quickly became clear to me that everything you could imagine, in the way of tools and materials, was somewhere in those many rooms, if you only had the time and patience to dig for it. Supermom told me that her dad was once a helluva mechanic, then he retired and kept it up as a hobby, and over the years his workshop devolved into something resembling a mad science laboratory.

So one Sunday afternoon, three days prior to our departure, I was out cleaning the Volkswagon and tidying up the cockpit area. Grandpa tottered over unexpectedly and offered to take a look at our air filter, for he’d heard that the bus wasn’t running very well, spewing black exhaust and chug-a-lugging over hills. “Air filter,” I thought to myself, “seriously?” So I popped the hood and invited him to have at it.

While I dug around for the owner’s manual, he pulled out a couple of filters. Then he showed them to me and said they looked dirty, but not bad enough yet to replace. “And by the way,” he said, “this clamp down here, it’s supposed to be up here, where these two hoses come together. And the hoses weren’t connected right so I put them back together. Lucky for you, I also have the very tool to tighten that clamp in the right spot. It’s a very rare tool that I ordered on eBay last year and have never had a chance to use it yet.” (Somehow this came as no surprise at all.)

I couldn’t imagine how a hose leading to the air filter could make any tremendous difference in the performance of the van, but I assured him that I’d take it for a drive and let him know. Let’s just say it made all the difference in the world. The sound of the motor, the color of the exhaust, the rate of acceleration, the speed up and down hills on the autobahn, everything is running better now. The drive across Germany, from Westerkappeln to Dresden, was an absolute pleasure, and we are already looking forward to the next leg of our journey.