Our scooters on the German-Polish border
Chen, a friend I met while engaged in a German language course, and I both loved riding on two wheels. We were both staying in Berlin for a while so we thought it’d be a good idea to get a scooter each for cheap. Chen being Chen, went all the way and got a brand new Aprilia. Me being me, negotiated with a secondhand scooter dealer for a four-year-old used Piaggio Zip with broken German. The we came up, or I came up, with the brilliant idea of riding all the way to Poland on Polish national day – in winter.
Sorry, I forgot where exactly I took this photo
We planned our route well in advance and I prepared my Charlene for the trip. Yes, I named my scooter. I brought along a map of the area, mounted my phone on the handlebar as a GPS device, brought plenty of dry foods, a 2L bottle of water, two pairs of gloves, and a change of underwear. I took the time to clean Charlene, adjust her gear ratios for a higher speed and lower acceleration, useful for long distances, and made sure she was up to spec. She is secondhand after all.
Chen and a tank
Chen, on the other hand, did absolutely nothing and brought his passport with him. His passport, to travel between borderless Schengen countries by land… And so we set off, he complained about the cold and I complained about not bringing a wireless speaker for some music. As we chugged along the country roads at 45km/h, we visited museums dedicated to the Soviet liberation of Berlin and various war memorials. The road we used was the route used by Soviet tanks to reach Berlin in WWII.
Bridge over the River Oder into Poland
When we crossed into Poland we realised that we could not speak Polish, had no mobile phone reception, and no Polish currency. So much for my planning. We used Couchsurfing in Poland to meet an activist calling for closer integration of peoples along the border area. Our kind host taught us how to make traditional Polish borsch with cheese and took us around both sides of the border by bicycle to show us the local market, town square, and ruins of a former Nazi gun post.
I didn’t have a motorcycle license, so I wasn’t legally allowed to ride into Poland, but the police there felt generous and gave me a pass at the border so I could ride for a day.
“Alright, you ride here today is ok, it’s national day, just make easy and don’t make trouble.” ~ Polish Police Officer
The pass sure made getting around a lot easier. I was almost certain that Chen wouldn’t entertain the idea of having me sit on the back of his tiny scooter for the rest of the trip!
Wikipedia Monument
One of the coolest things I saw in Poland was the Wikipedia Monument, I looked it up online in advance so I knew it existed, but it’s still really cool to see a town so committed to open source knowledge sharing. You go Poland!
