The joke

was on Dave.

"Anyone

who goes to Germany in March is out of their mind,"

was his oft-repeated explanation of why he was not

planning to accompany me on a culture-intensive visit

with our daughter.

"Besides,

this is boating season. You go to Germany and freeze. I'm

going back to the St. John's River."

Well, if

you were anywhere around Jacksonville in March, you know

who froze. It's the first time I can remember that the

man simply gave up and tied the boat to a dock to wait

out the weather. It was cold, it was windy, and several

times, he said, waves broke over the front of the

trawler.

Once the

boat bounced so hard a small hammock that swings from the

ceiling jumped off its hook and spilled its contents

- apples, grapefruit, potatoes, chips, cookies

- to the floor. Dave couldn't leave the helm to

retrieve them, so the fruit just rolled fore and aft as

the boat plowed through the heavy seas.

Now it

would give my plot an ironic twist to say that,

meanwhile, 4,000 miles away and at a considerably more

northerly latitude, I was enjoying balmy days and

sunshine. I'd love to be able to report Germany's window

flower boxes cascading color into the lanes of K�ln's

old city, and that I quaffed cold K�lsch beer in the

biergartens overlooking the Rhein.

Not

exactly. There's a reason air fares to northern Europe

are cheap in March. The weather was

chilly-to-flat-out-cold, with occasional drizzle, mostly

cloudy. Now and then the sun broke through, apparently

out of curiosity, since it's such an infrequent visitor.

There were maybe two days that I could go without a

jacket, and then wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

Mary works

for the opera company in K�ln, and has a small flat

there above a bakery. That's less tempting than it may

sound, because she is gone most of the day and gets home

long after Nick's closes.

But the

shop opens early, so it became my habit to dress and run

downstairs to buy a couple of fresh rolls for our

breakfast. Mary explained to the pleasant lady behind the

counter who I was, and I quickly forged bonds with her.

Or tried to.

For all

K�ln's being a major rail hub which, with huge

conventions and retail shows, probably sees more

foreigners than most other German cities, it seems to me

that English is not widely understood there, especially

in neighborhoods like the one in which Mary lives. But

like most Germans confronted with a foreigner's ignorance

about language and coins, Frau Nick was patient.

It didn't

take her long to figure out that her daily customer was

going to spend only a couple of Marks at a time and

engage in conversation that sounded like a first grader's

weather report: "Good morning. It's raining. It's

cold. Thank you. Bye."

Maybe Mary

should also have explained about the keys. I'm nearly as

incompetent in the use of keys as in the use of German.

(Believe it. I once called the police to get me into my

own house in Peachtree City. All he had to do was take

the key out of my hand and turn it in the lock.)

To get to

the bakery, I'd step out into the street, pass the shop

window, and enter the bakery's propped-open door. The

door to the apartment stairs locks behind me. To return,

of course, I have to use a key. Two keys, if Mary is in

the shower when I reach the top of the stairs.

Uh oh. With

two keys, and locks which may require toothed edge up or

down, chances are three-to-one that I'll try it wrong way

first.

Clutching

fresh br�tchen to my unjacketed bosom, I'd poke and turn

and poke and turn before finally getting that key in

right, only to repeat the process at the apartment door.

You'd think I could cut the odds in half by keeping the

two keys separated for the 10 seconds it takes to climb

the steps, but no-o-o-o.

Frau Nick

must have wondered.

Incidentally,

all this automatic locking of doors does not imply a bad

neighborhood. Au contraire, I have never felt unsafe in

any German neighborhood at any hour of day or night, not

ever. It's just that this is how Germans do things. Doors

are meant to be locked. Period.

I also

spent time at Mary and Rainer's fifth-floor apartment in

Gelsenkirchen. It takes three more keys to get in there

- for the street door, then outer and inner doors.

You do the math - I can't - and you'll see how

the options compound when all five keys are in my hand.

Naturally,

the right key is always the last one tried, and then

wrong side up.

Trust me,

if these were risky neighborhoods, I'd have propped the

doors open so I could get back in quickly.

Dave was

smart. He escaped the cold of Florida and came home after

two weeks. I wasn't about to pay to change my Lufthansa

ticket, so I stayed in Germany the whole month.

And -

shivering - was unlocking doors just as slowly at

the end of the month as at the beginning.

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