Back in 1988 I had just finished my electrical engineering degree (I scraped a pass) and was at a loss for what to do next. My dad had contacts with some companies in Germany and said he could get me a job there. 'Why not?' I thought even though I had failed German O Level and did not think I had much aptitude for languages.
So I ended up taking the train to southern Germany. That was a long journey with just a rucksack of belongings. I eventually arrived in Freiburg to be met by a guy from the company and driven to where I would live. This was a basement apartment in a fairly new building. On the floor above me were my landlady Baerbel, her husband Friedrich and son Markus. On the top floor was Baerbel's dad whose name escapes me. He spoke good English and so did Markus, but Baerbel and Friendrich did not speak it at all.
I was living in the tiny village of Wagensteig in the heart of the Black Forest. Luckily my place of work was just over the road. There was not much to do there with no shops, just a car workshop and a pub. Baerbel would take me to the supermarket each week to stock up on food. After a while she offered to sell me her elderly Fiat 126. It was better than nothing and it was cheap. I think I paid about 800DM for it, but she gave me 100 of that back as a gift.
I think they had to drive me somewhere to sort out the insurance. Doing things on-line was not an option back then and I did not even have a computer anyway.
That little car did me very well. It was basic. The windscreen washer was operated by a rubber bulb like a waterpistol. It did not go very fast with its little two-cylinder air-cooled engine, but it could get up the local mountain roads. I did lots of exploring of the area. It had a couple of little levers down by the handbrake. One was the choke and the other activated the starter.
At weekends I would drive into Freiburg where I made some friends and would go to the cinema or shop.
When I first arrived I had to make some effort to learn the language. The people I worked with mostly spoke English, but that was not good enough. I had a set of Berlitz tapes that my dad had used and they were pretty good. Later I went to some classes in Freiburg where I met some nice English girls I hung out with. I have a feeling that was when I had a different car.
Winters in that area could be severe, but we never had too much snow when I was there. I remember one time it snowed when I had not covered the car and when it melted it came through the fabric sunroof. It took a while to dry the car out. I also learned not to try and open the roof whilst driving as the wind would catch it.
I think the car lasted me about a year until something blew on the engine and it was decided it was not worth fixing. At least it never let me down when I was driving.
I had a couple of other cars in my two years in Germany, but that Fiat has a special place in my heart. I may write about the other cars some time, but I will have to see if I have any pictures. I do have some journals I wrote back then, but would need to find them and so I have been working from memory for this post. Scary that this is thirty years ago.
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