Marcus the crazy German

Every now and then, you can say something you regret, or react in a certain way that you might not have, had you known the full truth of a situation. And you can feel like a right royal arsehole when you realise this truth. Well I’m living one of those moments right now, and initially I thought I’d look back one day and laugh at the moment, but now I’m not so sure that I’ll ever see a bright side to this story.

I first met Marcus the crazy German at Copenhagen central station. I’d just come off the 15-hour long City Night Line service from Amsterdam and was looking about the station complex, enjoying the fabulous sunshine and thinking about how I would find a room for the night. I was quite surprised by how many other bicycle tourists were roaming Copenhagen train station, I think the vast majority were heading towards Mälmo, since one of the only ways you can arrive by bicycle to Sweden is to catch the train from Copenhagen over the Öresund Bridge – a mammoth structure that spans the sea connecting Denmark and Sweden by both road and rail. Naturally I like to strike up conversation with other cyclists. I’ve found that generally they are the kind of trustworthy, open minded, switched on individuals that can carry a good conversation, and obviously, being a fellow cyclist, you can share stories, tips and tricks.

Marcus seemed genuinely excited when we passed in the main hall of Mälmo C. He hails from Bavaria in southern Germany, and during our brief conversation, naturally there were bound to be language difficulties, but I’ve found that these can generally be overcome with enough articulation, pointing and gesturing. For some reason, Marcus assumed I was going immediately to Mälmo, and he was just about to drag me down to the platform and push me onto the next train when I managed to explain that I was first staying in Copenhagen for a couple of days. I think that if he hadn’t already bought his ticket, valid for one hour only, then he may well have also stayed in Copenhagen. So we parted ways, not before he excitedly took several photos, gave me his business card and wrote down the details of our encounter in his little notebook – something of a ritual for everything he does, no matter if it’s a 30 second conversation with a stranger, or purchasing a postage stamp.

I thought nothing more of it, though I did have intentions to eventually email him details of my blog so that he could contact me if he felt the urge. However, what I thought might be ‘two ships passing in the night’ turned out to be the first of a number of fateful encounters with Marcus. I headed through central Sweden, the beautiful forests and countryside quickly forced any thoughts of Marcus to the back of my mind. I spent two days travelling by bicycle and rail through the wilderness, a night wild camping by a mosquito infested lake, before arriving for three days of Midsommar bliss at the Lönn residence near Lake Mäloren at Eskilstuna. They were three of the best days of the whole cycling trip so far.

On Sunday morning, I departed Eskilstuna and the blissful lakeside residence where I’d had the most amazing Midsommar party, and began the lengthy 140km cycle to Stockholm. I was under the impression that I could possibly make the 5pm overnight ferry to Helsinki, though in hindsight that advice was a bit misguided. Nonetheless, I suspected as much and had lined up a potential room for the night with one of Kajsa’s Swedish Army mates, Henrickson. I was 20km out of Stockholm, on a bit of a mission to get to the ferry terminal, when I pulled up at an information sign to clarify my directions. Well, who would have thought that a week after our first chance encounter – over 600km to the south – that I would again run into Marcus, us both having ended up at the same road-sign, heading into Stockholm.

At first I was elated at the coincidence of our timing and our route. I had gone the inland route through Sweden’s forests, where Marcus had travelled up the coastline, yet here we both were, it was exciting and I had the feeling that it could only be fate that we would meet up again like this. Marcus seemed keen to folow me into town, and I could use the company, so long as he didn’t slow me down. Marcus also needed a guide, and since I had GPS all he had to do was follow me.

Somehow through a dificult conversation, I established that Marcus had planned to travel up to the North of Sweden and enter Finland overland – a tough journey in order of 1500km, and that’s just the leg between Stockholm and Helsinki. I assumed he knew what he was doing and had a set plan, but it soon became apparent that he didn’t have a clue. It was then that I was first stung for being too much the ‘nice guy’. I should have told him that I didn’t need to look for accommodation, and turned down his offer to share a room, should I become stranded in Stockholm from missing the ferry. Well, sure as shit, with Marcus in tow trying to make conversation, I missed my ferry by about 20 minutes. It was time to put Plan B into action and bunk down with Hendrickson for the night, and I had to quickly decide if I should help Marcus out by asking Hendrickson if it would be OK if a second person also crashed at his house. There was a great danger of this situation becoming potentially very awkward, but first I had to head to the ticket office and arrange passage on the next available ferry.

Sometimes whilst waiting in an endless, unmoving line at a bank, supermarket, post office or such, I’ve often wondered how it can be that one person at the counter window can successfully tie up the services of an attendant for what seems like an eternity. Especially when I know that when it comes my turn at the window, my business will be conducted in the space of about 30 seconds. What do these people do? The answer came to me at the Viking Line information desk, as I spent 45 minutes translating between the lovely Swedish girl behind the counter, and Marcus, whose travel plans seemed to be unravelling quicker than a roll of toilet paper at a surf carnival dunny.

At first it was quite a comical exchange, with several of the Viking Line staff gathering around to see what we were trying to do. In the end, it was clear that Marcus needed to buy the German equivalent of the Lonely Planet guidebook, and do his research before attempting such a mammoth trip north. He couldn’t understand that no boats went up where he wanted to go, or that there were no ferries because nobody lived up there to warrant a regular service. He would have to catch a train.

But just when I thought we’d solved the problem, he stated “well, I come with you then! Where you go? Where you go? I go with you, yes? Ja.” And I had no reason to believe that it would be a problem if Marcus followed me for a few days, so before too long, Marcus and I were both booked onto the same overnight ferry to Helsinki the following day. That left me a day behind schedule but there was nothing to do about it, and now I had to find a way to kill a day in Stockholm with Marcus in tow.

My first order of business was to sort out the room, and all I could think was how much things had changed in the space of about 20 minutes. Henrickson was expecting me, but not a random German in tow. With Marcus cycling behind me, I figured that we could only ask to see if there was a room we could share, otherwise I would direct him to a hostel. In the back of my mind, all I could think was that it’s pretty poor form to be rocking up at a friends house with an uninvited guest, but Henrickson was very accommodating and, since he was not staying at home that night anyway, there was indeed one room we could share, no problems.

But something was playing on my mind with Marcus, and it would soon all become very obvious. The language barrier was one thing, but I noticed that Marcus seemed to behave quite abnormally. He would fanatically bring you into conversations – the kind where you cannot get a word in no matter how hard you try, then at the end, you are left speechless and searching for something – anything – to say in response because there really is nothing to say about it. It was a conversation about something you really didn’t need to know. The first of those conversations, Marcus was explaining to me how he had a groin rash and was trying to explain to me the kind of powder or cream he needed to buy. When he brought this conversation up again in front of Henrickson, I was silently screaming inside, shrinking and curling up with embarrasment as he stood there gesticulating towards his groin! I mean, I understood it, I got it. He’d been cycling in the same clothes all week and he had developed a rash, but that’s not the kind of thing a normal person talks about to strangers they have literally just met in the street!

Then there were the tales about his travels from the past few years on a trip to Rome, a tale which didn’t really have any substance to it and a normal person would probably not even consider worth mentioning. There was the story about his twelve visists to some kind of Pilgram church in the middle of France, which he described in great detail over 10 minutes, and in short, that tale revealed nothing more than the fact he had spent a whole week at a place where people do nothing but prey and work, all day every day. And he’d been back there nearly a dozen times!

Warning bells are going off in my head, and so I asked the one question that always sorts out the boys from the men.
“So Marcus, do you drink? I feel like a beer…”
“Oh no, I don’t drink.” And there I thought I had my answer. Marcus was a churchie, and that explained a lot, but not everything. I guessed that his Bavarian heritage and the language barrier made up for the rest. But still, the puzzle grew more complex. He had a terrible habit of dropping everything, constantly misplacing his belongings, and he kept notes on scraps of paper from years and years ago, still in his wallet. I couldn’t believe it when he pulled out the details of a friend in Melbourne when he had visited World Youth Day in Australia back in 2008. Why on earth does he keep carrying that stuff around? I watched on with Hendrickson as he fumbled through several bags, dropping more belongings all over the kitchen floor, and couldn’t help but notice when amongst all the random stuff, he pulled out two condoms. I stole a look at Henrickson, and he looked back at me, we were both thinking the same thing. Later I would get a message from Henrickson, “well mate, have a good time, I think if you want to, you’ve got a sure chance of getting laid tonight! LOL”. And I had to laugh at the situation I’d got myself into, but thinking that Marcus was a harmless, God-faring citizen, I wasn’t that overly concernedabout being man-raped, just worried about the peculiarities, and growing slightly weary of every conversation requiring so much effort.

Before he could bumble around any longer, I had to get him out of the house, as I wouldn’t have been surprised if Henrickson was starting to have second thoughts as to having said yes to let Marcus (or us both) stay the night. So we shuffled out and began our hunt for dinner. I was personally happy to grab the Swedish specialty of fried herring served with mash potatoes, from the fish caravan outside Slussen metro station. I’ve eaten there before and it was delighfully tasty and cheap. But Marcus would not eat fish, and in fact for dinner he insisted that nothing but ‘noodle’ would suffice. Mind you it took us about 6 different cuisines to find out exactly what he meant by ‘noodle’. Not Thai or something oriental like I suspected, not even spaghetti. But specifically, what he meant was tortellini pasta. We managed to cause a bit of a scene at a posh Italian restaurant in Gamla Stan, in the old town of Stockholm. I had already eaten and had no intention of eating a restaurant meal in one of the most expensive districts, but our hunt for ‘noodle’ had led us here in the end. The restaurant manager was one of many people over the next few days that would try their short, courteous best to assist Marcus when he lobbed up to ask a question or seek their services. But like all people everywhere we went – from the pharmacy, to the camera store, to the random people he accosted in the street for directions – they would quickly push him off onto somebody else, or turn away, when it became very clear that they could not deal with the enquiry. The problem was that Marcus came across as stubbornly blunt, and borderline aggressive in his speech. The fact that he was a German in Sweden also didn’t go down in his favour, as the Swedish population still holds the memory of the war close to their hearts, and haven’t yet forgiven the German people for what they let happen almost 60 years ago.

His ‘noodles’ arrived, and I sipped a beer to help me relax and think through the situation, when all of a sudden he proclaimed that he had no money, and that he only had travellers cheques kept back in his bike bag at the house. So here I was stuck in an expensive restaurant in the heart of Gamla Stan, having to now find out if I could pay his bill for him, using Euros as it’s all I had on me. The restaurant manager – and the waitress who served us – put on a veneer of helpfulness, but I could tell that really they had no time for us. Why couldn’t we just order from the regular menu, pay our bill and be off like normal people? It was personally embarrassing, since I could feel the tension, though Marcus was oblivious to the feelings of other people, just as he was oblivious to the perception that other people had of him.

As we cycled through the city of Stockholm, he would constantly ring his bell as we crossed various footpaths, everytime we cam across a pedestrian. He did this even when there was no need. I pulled him aside one time after getting yet another confused or dirty look from a pedestrian. “You know Marcus, you shouldn’t ring your bell every time you come upon a person on the footpath. Save it for the cycle lanes where bicycles do actually have right of way, and if you must be on the footpath, remember to be patient with the pedestrians.”

Everything about Marcus was grating on me suddenly, and it was an encounter just before we arrived at the restaurant that helped me to make up my mind about whether or not I wanted to continue my travels with him. He stopped several groups of people in the pedestrian plaza to ask for directions to the ‘noodle’ place, and despite their best intentions to communicate, they could not get their message across, yet he persisted with barking the same sentence as though they would eventually understand. “You do not know? you do not know noodle? You do not know where noodle?” And I had seen it several times that afternoon, in every interaction we had with people; his over-enthusiasm to have a question answered, coupled with his inability to understand their clear answers, his repetitive, near-abusive questioning and loud, excited demeanour which he would break out into when he came across anything that remotely excited him. It soon dawned on me that if I travelled with Marcus, I would never be able to enjoy myself, because every single person would fob him off in the end, or think he was too much work to converse with, or just too strange for their liking. I mean, there is an encounter you can have with a foreigner which is fun and intrigueing, even if you do spend an hour trying to understand each other. There is another type that screams to you, get away, this guy is a bit whacko, I don’t want to deal with this person.

And so it was that I sent a few messages to people in London, my Swedish friends and so forth, as they wondered how I was doing in Stockholm and I had to tell them how I’d inadvertently got myself into a bind with a crazy German fella following me about town, and how I was having difficulty shaking him. It was by this stage clear that if Marcus had his way, he probably would have followed me all the way back to Sydney! Eventually I decidd that I would make my stand and tell him that I could not cycle with him past Helsinki, because I needed to be in Prague by a certain date. That was in fact the truth, though not the whole truth. But it was all that he needed to know.

Then before we finished dinner, Marcus told me his story. When he was 9 years old, he was in a serious car crash and in a coma for 8 weeks. Now he also has epilepsy, of which he would have an average of 3-4 fits every year. Suddenly it all became clear, and why his behaviour was like that of a 10 year old kid. He cannot get a driver’s license, and so he uses a bicycle instead of a car on his travels. Then I saw his medicines – he was taking 9 tablets per day to help treat his condition. I asked him what he did for work in Germany, and it turned out he had been on a training program, I think obviously for people with his type of condition. He worked at the German equivalent of Hardware House, but after a few years in the job, a new boss came in and, even though he had a government health card stating that he couldn’t be sacked for his condition, he was. So Marcus had also been the victim plenty of times in his life.

Well you can imagine what an arsehole I felt, after having slandered him off as a whacko to several people, when it was all explainable. It still didn’t help my situation, but I had a lot more sympathy for him now, and I almost felt like it was my duty to help him out for a while before he went on his way. I sacrificed my entire next day taking him to exchange traveller’s cheques, find cream for his ‘rash’ (very embarrassing) and finally when I explained to Henrickson the reason for his behaviour, I think he also understood too.

It was clear that Marcus ‘could’ handle himself. I mean, he’d so far managed to cycle from Germany, get to Copenhagen, and then make his way north towards Stockholm all by himself and with only the occasional help of a few locals for directions. So I figured that I could leave him to be, but I ended up playing mediator in most of his dealings, and I could tell that everybody we encountered thought that I was his helper, there to guide him through the day or whatever. It was better that they thought that, then the times when I stood back and watched the situation get nowhere fast. The last time I let that happen was when he spent 45 minutes at the window of the Foreign Exchange office, trying to cash his Euro cheques. It can’t possibly be that complicated surely, but it was. And it was better that I helped the situations like this out, as opposed to wasting my day, waiting for him.

That night as I lay in bed, I realised that I’d learned a lot about myself since meeting Marcus. Though outwardly normal in appearance, until you have to liaise with him in any lengthy manner, he was the kind of person that really did need a guiding hand through life. And I thought that he did quite well on his own considering, and knew that there were people out there that had it much worse off than he did. But still, I’d been faced with Marcus for two days, and already I knew that I was going to give him the flick once I got clear of Helsinki.

There are people out there that I have a lot of respect for. They care for people who can’t take care of themselves, and I’m not sure if it’s a rewarding job, or a thankless task. Maybe it can be both, depending on the circumstances? But one thing is for certain. There are people out there that have the tolerance and patience to deal with these kinds of people, and situations, and now I know that I am not one of them. And I don’t like it. It’s not like I was wiping Marcus’ arse on the toilet, or spoon feeding him dinner as he sat in a wheelchair. I am not in a position where I am obligated, or required to look after somebody, but if I was placed there one day, I think that it would be too much. And now that I know this truth, I can’t decide whether I hate myself for it or not.

I imagine this has been an interesting, if somewhat lengthy insight into my travels, and a situation that I never expected to come across. I’m sitting in the cabaret lounge of the overnight ferry to Helsinki as I write this, having temporarily escaped his clutches whilst he has a shower. So tonight, I will try to enjoy myself as much as I can, knowing that Marcus will be lurking there somewhere in the shadows as we sail into the night, and I’ll make sure he gets by. I just spoke to a Swedish guy by the name of Kim, who was in the middle of reading a book on deck in the sun, when he was accosted by Marcus as he tried to make friends with anyone and everyone that he interacted with, before writing down his name and email address in his little notepad. And as I rescued him, and Marcus went off to find a sock that he’d dropped somewhere between decks 2 and 6, Kim made a very interesting comment. “You know I feel sorry for that guy, because he will never have a real friend in life. People will always be able to take advantage of him, and nobody will ever have the time to get to know him as a true friend, because of the way his condition affects him socially. Unlike you and I, who will probably have a beer later in the bar and continue this conversation, Marcus may never know that companionship in any sense.”

And so, that is the story of Marcus, the Crazy German, who is now half-way through a 5 week cycling trip from Germany to Scandinavia and back again through Poland. I hope he makes it home.

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