By train through Mecklenburg

August 8. Arrive Travemünde 8 AM. This small port town is northeast of Lübeck and on the border with the former DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), the Communist German state. Embark by train going east and change in Bad Kleinen. The wait at the station is like something out of the twilight zone as the platforms are completely deserted. I am the only traveller there. Where is everybody? What I see of towns in the former East Germany has that grey, dull look of all of Eastern Europe. It has only been four and a half years since the wall fell and the two Germanies were reunited. On the way south to Berlin, just north of Schwerin, the train breaks down inexplicably in the middle of nowhere. It is really hot again and we are stuck for over an hour. One of the passengers in my compartment, a woman in her forties, complains that this is what she would expect of the Reichsbahn (the former E. German railway) but not of the Deustsche Bundesbahn (the W. German national railway that has now taken over running the entire system). "I thought things are supposed to get better", she remarks indignantly. It is, I think, typical of the expectations people in the eastern side have, that life in the West is a bed of roses and everything goes smoothly. Well, it doesn't -- not always.