Last week I had the privilege of traveling in Europe with my mishpocha.

We spent a week in Spain, then an additional three days in Holland.

Everything went swimmingly. The hotels were fine, the food deelish, the public transportation fast and efficient. Beyond that, everyone we dealt with was friendly and healpful – no small deal when you’re dealing with a language barrier, sometimes a big one.

But on my first day in Holland, a strange feeling came over me, and it wasn’t a good feeling, either. It wasn’t as bad as dread, but it was worse than mere discomfort. Maybe “disquieting” best fits the bill.

And there was no reason for it. We were in Leiden, Rembrandt’s hometown. It’s a lovely little city, , a college town, home to a restored windmill – just as charming as it gets. How could I, or anyone, feel weird in that setting, unless possessed by a dybbuk?

Even the weather was cooperating – something it too often does not do in Northern Europe. The sky was bright blue, the sun shone brilliantly, the temperature was comfortable.

And I was taking in the weather, appreciating how perfect day it was, when I realized what’d been bugging me. I was being reminded of my first trip to Europe. That trip was almost a half-century removed in time, worlds apart in experience, and graciously underwritten by the U.S. Navy.

When I got my orders for Germany, at the end of my time A School, I was thrilled. For one thing, compared to the isolated or just plain crappy duty stations everyone’d been getting the whole time I was there, Germany looked like heaven on earth. For another thing, the school was in Pensacola, Florida, and I’d been there over the summer, which given the heat and humidity, was like hell on earth. When I left I made a vow I’d never complain about any place being too cold. I kept that vow and good thing I did, since it got tried mightily on my foray to Deutschland.

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A trip what a trip

When I got my packet of orders, I tore it open and stared, dumbfounded: They weren’t written in English – at least not the English I’d been used to. Instead, there was every acronym and initialism known to man (military man, that is). I, CTRSN (Communications Technician, R Branch, Seaman) Seidenstein, was going to USAREUR (U.S. Army Europe) for specific assignment to NAVSECGRUAC (Navy Security Group Activity) Bremerhaven, and so on.

Also in the packet was an airplane ticket. By then, servicemen going overseas weren’t transported by troop ships but by air, on MATS (Military Air Transport Service) planes, which from what I heard were the equivalent of cattle cars with wings. But I, lowly CTRSN Seidenstein, was gonna rock the overseas transport scene on Pan Am, out of JFK airport, no less!

Then I noticed something. While I would be stationed at Bremerhaven, my Pan Am flight was to Frankfort. I went to the base library and checked an atlas. Frankfort was about 325 miles from Bremerhaven. How as I supposed to get from the former to the latter? I asked my section petty officer, a mildly goofy Howdy Doody lookalike named Boynton.

“No sweat,” he said. “There’ll be someone there to meet you.”

Giving him full credit, he was half right.

When I landed at the ungodly hour of 0130 German time, jet lagged out of my gourd, there was someone in the airport but not to meet me. Instead, the joint was pretty much closed down, and the only people there were mopping the floors and not at all conversant in English. Actually, I don’t know if they could even speak German since they were Turkish – a sad bunch euphemistically labeled “guest workers.” Workers, they were, but as for being guests ?

I knew I had to get to a military base, but had no idea where one was or how I’d get there. I wandered around the station, feeling like a straggler from The Lost Battalion, numb, confused, exhausted. Finally, I saw a phone on the wall labeled, “MP Phone.”

Ah, I thought, that’s it. Call the good ole MPs, and they’ll rush over and rescue me, like the cavalry to the besieged fort. Obviously, I’d seen too many cowboy movies as a kid because no one was going rush or rescue, since the phone line was dead – as dead as my hopes of getting any help that night. And I didn’t.

Instead, I spent the night sitting in a plastic chair not made for comfort let alone sleep, desperately trying to stay warm: The airport lobby was more fit for a morgue than anyplace fit for living humans. And unknown to me, there was good reason for it – Germany was currently undergoing its coldest winter in 25 years.

I managed to shiver and shake my way through the night, and when the morning’s gray light weakly seeped in (there was no sun, nor would there be for the rest of the winter), I unkinked my way out of the chair.

Then I a bunch of Army guys came in the terminal, and I creaked over to them to find out how to get to a military base. It turned out the base, Rhein-Main, was only a short military bus ride away. I hoisted my seabag, got on the bus and went to the base. There I waited in a bunch of lines and found out I was going to get to Bremerhaven on the “duty train.”

The duty train wasn’t a whole train; it was a car attached to the German civilian train.

OK, I thought, I’m fine with that. After all, what can go wrong? As I found out, a bunch of things.

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Chillin’

First, the duty train didn’t leave till late that night, so now I had about a 10-hour wait in Rhein-Main’s euphemistically labeled “Reception Center,” which was just a huge room full of uncomfortable furniture and all manner of GI’s sprawled out on it. I did the only thing I could -?I sprawled too. But I did not sleep, so at 10 that night (or, if you prefer, 2,200) when I took the bus to the Bahnhof (the railroad station) I was even more wiped out and wretched than I’d been that morning. And maybe that was a good thing since if I’d been fully conscious, the experience might’ve sent me over the edge.

Here’s the thing: The bahnof wasn’t enclosed. It was basically a big tunnel through which the trains came and went. And so, too, did the wind. And, as I told you, this was all taking place in Germany’s coldest winter in a quarter-century, so cold it would’ve frozen the batsim off a brass baboon.

And to that we can add my uniform. The dress blues and pea coat were warm, but nothing else was. My issue gloves were inadequate for those conditions, as were my socks and shoes. Even worse was what was on my head – my white hat. It was cotton and offered no warmth whatsoever to either my head or ears, both of which were in short order being chomped on by Jack Frost, hisself. It was frostbite in a literal sense.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, after the train pulled in, they discovered the duty train wasn’t attached. So I then had another half-hour tacked onto the half-hour I’d already waited there. By then I was numb from top to tarsals and was in the throes of a one-man pity party that appeared would never end.

When I finally crawled into my rack on the duty train, blue in lips, fingertips and mood, it dawned on me that all my in-country Germany misery had taken place in less than 24 hours.

I thought of that Dinah Washington song, “What a Difference a Day Makes.”

Then I thought, oh, Dinah, if only you knew!