(September 12, 2023: Echzell, Hesse, Germany to Alkmaar, Noord-Holland, Netherlands)

I packed up my things long before dawn. By four-thirty, I was on the S-Bahn into Frankfurt, and by six, I was on a different S-Bahn train headed north into the Hessian countryside. Dawn began to break as I waited for yet another transfer at Friedberg, with enough time to grab a quick breakfast at the station Bäckerei. By seven-thirty, I’d made my destination, a single platform station in butt-ass-nowhere, called Reichelsheim (Wetterau), a tidy collection of brick houses, and a few slightly newer modern-ish box homes clustered around a REWE supermarket, a smaller Netto Marken-Discount, and damn near nothing else.

It’s the kind of place that would have a Chicken Express, an A&W/Dairy Queen, and fifteen churches if it were in Texas, but this definitely wasn’t Texas. No live oaks whatsoever, instead, the forested Taunus Mountains remained visible on the far side of Friedberg well to the west, and the landscape immediately leaving town opens up into green, gently rolling farmland.

A footpath northeastbound follows the S-Bahn track toward a depression in the north, a wetland complex called Bingenheimer Ried. Before even leaving town, Graylag Geese (Graugans), svelte and free-flying unlike the tubby domestic monstrosities we see in America, honked overhead, joined by other waterfowl – including, to my amusement, introduced Canada Geese (Kanadagans) and Egyptian Geese (Nilgans) which are familiar from my travels in America.

A low, artificial rise adjacent to a tool shed gave me my first good look over the wetlands, and also revealed a decent-sized observation tower to the north. While Enkheimer Ried had been nice and productive, there was no birding-specific infrastructure there, whereas there were clearly purpose-built observation decks at Bingenheimer Ried. Maybe if I was lucky, there’d be other birders present, hopefully not too many, though.

Rare birds can draw in surprising crowds: in America, the first chaseable Spotted Rail drew in dozens, if not hundreds of birders to Choke Canyon Park, tucked away in the whole-lotta-nothing between Corpus Christi and San Antonio. A whole peninsula lined with telescopes and long-lens cameras, all looking for one ungainly, if striking waterbird that had strayed there from Central America. In Britain and Japan, I’ve seen social media photos with huge groups all straining to photograph a single stray from America.

Here, there was a continuing record of a shorebird that would have made more sense to see along the Caspian Sea than a Hessian wetland: a Black-winged Pratincole, with a real doozy of a name in German: Schwarzflügelbrachschwalbe … YIKES! Pratincoles are much less well known than sandpipers or plovers since they don’t range in America at all, but they’re streamlined open-country birds (“shorebirds” being a generalized term referring to a group of related birds rather than an absolute label of behavior or habitat) which feed aerially on insects.

Given that my itinerary wasn’t intended to take me remotely close to the Caspian, I had to give this one a try.

I stroll over to the wooden observation tower, and there are a few people already there but it’s not crowded at all. The telescopes are out, which is good because the main wetland is a good hundred yards out.

Even with eight-power binoculars, it’s easy to see why this place is a birder’s dream. White Stork (helpfully, Weißstorch) forage in the shallows. Wheeling flocks of black-and-white Northern Lapwings (Kiebitz) distract us from time to time with their chatter (ah, yes, kibitzing). Any number of marsh birds and songbirds and crows and the occasional raptor. Still, not yet The Bird.

At some point, they asked where I parked my car. “Oh, I took the train from Frankfurt.” It takes about an hour before they are like, oh, you’re not an immigrant living in Frankfurt who’s so acclimated you’re a birder. I switch to English. “Nope, just landed here from Texas yesterday.” I switched briefly to my first ex-family’s Wichita Falls drawl for comedic effect, and, well, I’m Filipino, so hearing the Hank Hill Voice coming out of my mouth is nearly as much vocal dissonance as, well, me speaking German. Mirthful laughter and I’m a stranger no more.

Turns out at least one of them had been to Texas to see Whooping Cranes, as I have in years past! Birders will be birders: we are a tribe that transcends national origin and common language, and we chase the same legends and listen to the same grapevine. I’d gotten my info from a German living in Belgium before double-checking on eBird. (Note: we’ll get to Dirk in a couple days. He’s awesome.)

Fifty-odd species later (and I’d like to note that this would be a really great list for a single location in Texas, which is right there with California in “you are a spoiled dadgum birder” terms), and we’re still scanning, and it’s getting close to nine and I really need to start considering heading back to the train, rarity or not, if I’m going to make it to my next hostel by nightfall.

Cause this is a side trip, folks. This wasn’t even part of The Itinerary, this was a target of opportunity. And right about when I thought my window was closing, There It Was.

Black wings. Forked tail. Black necklace. Too streamlined for a plover, too chunky to be a tern, sitting pretty on a sandbar. The Schwarzflügelbrachschwalbe (and, nobody was yelling this word like the KRANKENWAGEN meme because not even the Germans were going to consider that) was ours, with high-fives and smiles all around. No, I would not have to save this bird for some far-future pie-in-the-sky trip along the Silk Road. Mind you, I do want to visit the Silk Road, but that’s realistically not happening on a social services coordinator budget.

Well, not like this was realistic on non-profit salary either, and yet here I was, in the middle of a bunch of German birders, celebrating a life bird that makes literally zero sense for an Austinite to expect before retirement age.

Too soon, I had to take my leave, because I had a full birding day booked for the very next day … nearly three hundred miles northwest. And I wasn’t flying.

You see, today wasn’t originally intended to be a birding day, this was a transit day and I’d added two more steps to my whirlwind.

From Reichenheim (Wetterau), S-Bahn local train to Friedberg. Switch onto the S-Bahn back to Frankfurt (Main) central station. And then it would be time to switch to a train towards Düsseldorf, but for a transfer coming in Cologne (Köln).

The original plan had been to take slower trains along the Rhine Valley and check out the Lorelei, that fabled hill upon the Rhine below which the mermaids would lure travelers to some romantically dreadful fate, but there was absolutely no time for that now that I’d burned that on getting a much larger net haul of bird species off the beaten path. Nope, it was time to switch to an ICE train …

And by eleven, that very ICE train was now on the tracks between the Frankfurt main station and airport stops, doing absolutely nothing for half an hour. Finally, an appropriately snarky voice came over the PA, first in German, then in English, both with the same tired, passive-aggressive vocal affect. The other passengers started chuckling.

“Welcome to the ICE train to Düsseldorf. We will be forty-five minutes late to Köln, and we will not be stopping in Düsseldorf. Thank you for riding Deutsche Bahn.”

German. Efficiency. The conductor’s irritation was palpable. Evidently, my rides on the local S-Bahn trains, five in a row all on time without incident, were an utter anomaly, and this was closer to the expectation. No matter, because it makes little sense to worry about what is out of my control, and when in doubt, you pivot!

It wasn’t long before we got rolling, and not much longer beyond that we were screaming through the foothills of the Taunus at 150mph. Now we’re cooking. Forests and farms and the occasional town out the windows, my lifer Red Kite (Rotmilan) seen soaring high overhead (birding from high-speed trains being a skill I learned was indeed feasible on multiple trips along the even faster Tokaido and San’yo Shinkansen lines).

Before too long, the train slowed and farmland gave way to urbanity again, and the spire of Cologne Cathedral loomed across the river. There was my transfer, half an hour before my next ICE train, enough time to check out the cathedral and grab a currywurst,

Just then, a pretty young lady started speaking to me in English. I was caught off guard, so I instinctively replied in English – and immediately realized my mistake. She started in on her sob story about how she was from Afghanistan and needed money and I immediately just walked off because I needed a restroom, I needed some currywurst, and I absolutely did not have time for panhandlers and pickpockets and hell no, not gonna be a mark today.

This may sound callous, but let’s be real: solo travelers abroad are targets, especially Americans, because, whether or not you think you have money (and by American standards, I don’t), you still look like you have money. Even being a paycheck-to-paycheck American means you are a one-percenter by most standards.

Fortunately, I know exactly where to go. Polizei. Duh.

I wasn’t going to trouble myself by turning her in, obviously, because, for all I knew, she was really in need, but she wasn’t going to press the matter in front of the cops, and if she had any accomplices, they would be wise to disappear right the hell then.

More to the point, I didn’t have the damn time, because my bladder was going to bust. Nice coincidence, there’s the bathroom, right next to the Polizei, time to get a euro coin (blargh), and oh hey, currywurst at Le Crobag, let’s effing go.

I was so hypervigilant getting to that Amsterdam ICE train that I failed to get decent shots of the cathedral and I didn’t even remember to tuck into my currywurst until my train was nearly halfway to the Dutch border, sailing through Monchengladbach. The sandwich was still pristine. European breads are wizardry.

The countryside gets progressively flatter as you transition from Germany to the Netherlands, hammering home why people call Benelux “the Low Countries”. It can’t be overstated: the flatness of the Netherlands makes Texas look positively Himalayan. What the Netherlands lacks in topography, though, it more than makes up for in both rural charisma and, weirdly enough, urban squalor.

The ICE train announcement as you reach Utrecht is particularly dire. “Please be aware of pickpockets at all times, there is high pickpocket activity in Utrecht and Amsterdam.” Really, that would have been friendly to mention before, I dunno, COLOGNE? Eindhoven seemed clean and modern enough, but Amsterdam-Zentraal, our next transfer, was …

… yeah, we weren’t going to actually be staying in Amsterdam on this trip, because we still had more train travel to go.

Fortunately for my purposes, the warm cloudy day had become a blustery, rainy afternoon, and the transfer to the local Dutch train was rather uneventful except that I had managed to catch the commuter train with all the students on board going home for the evening.

Now. I can get by in German, and I’m a native speaker of American English. Logically, the Netherlands being geographically and linguistically between these two countries, I should be fine with Dutch, right And you would be absolutely wrong because Dutch is as incomprehensible to me as Quenya or Simlish. You’d conversely maybe think I’d find it awkward and strange, but actually, no, Dutch is a complete and utter delight to listen to.

If there was one word to describe it?

Lekker. The Dutch language is totally lekker.

I’m not being sarcastic: this was literally the word I heard the most on that train ride toward Den Helder.

Also: these folks hold on to their terminal Rs like they’re life preservers in the North Sea, for some reason the Amsterdam dialect sounds almost exactly like a Texas drawl, and I’ll be damned if “valley girl affect” isn’t the goddamn same in Dutch as it is in English.

(In completely unrelated news, if any of you knows or is a polyamorous Dutch girl and happens to be even remotely interested in dating a slightly over-the-hill but adventurous and affectionate non-binary Filipino-American …)

It was stormy by the time I got to Alkmaar, but still early enough (mid-afternoon) that I had time to explore a bit after checking into the hostel.

Alkmaar is sort of a mini-Amsterdam, a canal city with houseboats, but without the urban blight and overcrowding. Instead: a quaint square with the largest cheese market in all of the Netherlands. It looks like a church spire, but I promise you, that is a shrine to cheese. This should be terrifying to me, since I’m lactose intolerant, except that not once in Europe was this ever a problem. A mystery for the ages. (And thankfully not a reenacted movie scene across the table from Kevin Kline!) Across the canal, there was a friendly dude hawking stoofvlees, an irresistible (and actually Flemish) concoction of rich beef stew over fried potatoes, something like an Old World cousin of poutine.

(I still have dreams about all this food a year later.)

The storms had receded into herringbone clouds, and the sun peeked through again as I enjoyed dinner in Alkmaar. Black-headed Gulls (kokmeeuw) wheeled overhead waiting for pedestrians to drop tasty morsels; a wild-coiffured Great Crested Grebe (grote kuiffuut) bobbed in the water looking like the bird equivalent of a System of a Down roadie.

Tomorrow would be a whole day of birding, and all I had to do was check in …

And I returned to the hostel to find a rather snotty young Australian woman in yoga pants at the desk screaming. Evidently she’d self-extended her stay without telling anyone and so my stuff was now strewn outside the room, and her stuff was all over the fucking place and she had evidently thrown a completely shitfit which the flustered hostel manager was trying desperately to manage. After she calmed down, presumably unwadded her pantaloons, and vacated, the manager got me my own room for being so polite and patient and for helping him calm down. (I’m ex-Disney. I know this shit happens, and I know how hard it is to stay professional when it does.)

And look, people have bad days, even when they’re supposed to be having the time of their lives. It’s not a national thing, a cultural thing, or a gendered thing. I’ve had remarkably bad days, in public, during travel, with others around to hold the receipts. So, I’m not going to blame her either. I hope her yoga got her to a better headspace that day.

As for the receptionist, I noticed he was also serving as a barista. A real Dutch coffee, please. (Every country does better coffee than America, I swear.) Over that much-better-coffee-than-Starbucks, I take the opportunity to ask the receptionist-slash-barista what his real opinions about Americans are, and he levels with me that, nowadays, the “ugly Americans” don’t leave their country, and it’s actually the Aussies and Kiwis out of the English-speakers who cause trouble (this earned an eyebrow, but I was frankly thinking this was recency bias), but not even a fraction of the trouble of Mainlander Chinese who don’t queue up, never learn local languages, leave trash everywhere …

Y’all, I’m fully a quarter Fujianese by DNA — that fraction of my ancestors lived in the kind of circular fortress-towns you’d half-expect to see in a wuxia film or a Mulan remake.

But also, from Kyoto to San Antonio, I can kinda personally vouch, because the Venn diagram of “coming from a culture that considers itself the center of the world” plus “nouveau riche with no fucking manners” is going to suck no matter what ethnicity or nationality that Venn diagram comes from, and Mainland China is precisely where that junction of recently prosperous, deeply self-centered people with no common sense is on the ascendant right now.

Dude was also keenly observant on the other point: the stereotypical Ugly Americans would never leave their homes nowadays because they’re too busy believing what they’re told, that everywhere else is a shithole. Or, in the words of a particularly toxic influence long since yeeted from my life: “Why would you ever leave America when everything you could ever want is already here?” (Yeah, double middle-fingers to that person. Not one bit sorry.)

More world for me to enjoy, anyhow.

I gave myself time afterward to really enjoy a quiet evening in Alkmaar, because tomorrow would be a very busy, all-day birding trip to the North Sea island of Texel, and this was perfect — I certainly didn’t feel overwhelmed like I would have in Amsterdam. I walked past a Hawaii Restaurant whose menu was zero percent Hawaii, but those burgers would’ve been great if I wasn’t literally from where burgers are like The Most Basic Restaurant Food. So I ended up with spareribs (helpfully labeled “spareribs“, with a choice of “traditioneel” or “spicy“) at a place called De Waag (because it’s the Netherlands and their double vowels deserve at least half a dozen appearances in this blog entry), and then got myself a pretty good night’s sleep in anticipation of another early morning.

All in all, a very unexpected and high-productive side-trip, a damn-near u-turn, and my second new country in as many days. Right on.