Let´s go to Opfinger See!¨, Celine suggested.
I said yep, Aubrey said yep, Jorge and Ernie said yep, and the internet promised that it would only take five minutes. We agreed– the Opfinger See would be a go-er on this publicholiday Thursday.
¨So where do we have to go?¨ Celine asked, and I consulted the web page that looked legitimate because it had trustworthy blue font, and appeared to be an authorative source of tourism information: ¨It says to take the line 3 or 5 tram and then get off at some tram stop, cross the bridge and voila, you´ll be there!¨. We all agreed to meet at 2 pm and ran off to get our affairs in order.
Jorge, Aubrey, Ernie and I were first to arrive at the meeting place, and Ernie brought the house down when he caught a Gummi Bear in his mouth after Jorge threw it to him from about ten metres away– I kept saying ¨How did you do that?? Like, HOW did you do that?!¨ before Celine trotted out to join us. We all stopped and stared at her, confused. Then, we started laughing.
You had me in shorts and a t-shirt, Jorge in multi-coloured check shorts and a t-shirt, Ernie in flower shorts and a t-shirt, and then Celine– in winter tights, a heavy jumper and a scarf (refer to bottom, middle pic). It was 28 degrees. Our destination was a lake. There was no halfway house with the weather, it was a stinking hot day:
¨Celine, was machst du?!?¨ (¨Celine, what are you doing??¨) we all declared and she started laughing, protesting that ¨it was cold, I thought it was gonna be cold, isn´t it cold??¨ to which we all tsked, vehemently shook our heads and banished her back to her room to get changed.
She emerged in shorts and a t-shirt, and we grinned: much better.
None of us had ever been to Opfinger before, and all of us have been a tiny bit anti-Strassenbahn (ie anti-tram) because buying a tram ticket is inexplicably confusing. But today, the tram was the only certain part of our journey and so we hopped on, got off at the correct stop and congratulated ourselves on a job well done. We scanned our surroundings for the bridge that was mentioned in the website– and found the bridge. We crossed it. Then we scanned our surroundings for a see park, and found– nothing.
We wandered aimlessly and searched for someone to ask– a group of teenage punks: ¨Where is Opfnger See?¨I asked, and they smirked before directing us ¨in that direction!!¨. I thanked them with a frown and didn´t trust them within an inch of my directionally-challenged brain. We found another lady who was just coming back from the shops with some ciggies, cheese and a newspaper. She shook her head, concerned and threw up her hands: ¨No, no, those kids are wrong, you have to walk left, then straight, then left, and then there is a bus stop and then you have to go ten minutes on a bus!!¨
We all gaped. That ain´t what the internet had said. It also was completely different to what those motherfrikking punks had said. She kindly walked with us part of the way before waving us off: ¨God speed¨, she may as well have said and we clutched our belongings and continued on.
We trudged down the highway, the sun beating down, and couldn´t find any bus stops. We stopped off at a service station and she directed us to keep walking gerade aus (¨straight¨). We passed a middle- of-nowhere bunch of buildings and got yelled at by a cyclist for being on the wrong side of the bike path. We collectively sighed.
Eventually, we passed a roundabout that had a bunch of buses, but we ignored them because the lady hadn´t said anything about a roundabout– she´d just said to go straight. And so we did. For ages. Under the hot beating sun. We wiped the sweat from our brow and shifted our back packs. It was going on 3:30 pm.
Finally, a bus came, and we asked him how to get from Opfinger See. It turns out that the roundabout of buses had been our ticket there. It was the neverending journey to nowhere, and we sat back into the bus seats, cursing that website with the f*cked up, misleading instructions.
When we got back to the roundabout, we got off the bus and found the right bus, and we all smiled hopefully: surely, surely, we were close now. The bus drove for ages and then it stopped at the entrance to what looked to be a forest. A girl with a pretty bike and a 70´s fringe looked up as Celine asked her: ¨Where is the Opfinger Sea¨. She answered: ¨I really have no idea, but I think it´s in that direction¨. She pointed to the sky. Really, she couldn´t have been more vague, and her pointing couldn´t have been more confusing– but god knows why, we followed it.
We walked for kilometres and kilometres- Jorge swatting away at flies, Ernie and I picking wild flowers and stinging our fingers on some nettles, while Aubrey smiled a tiny bit frustrated. It went on, and on, and on.
Finally, an old lady came past: ¨Five minutes, and you´re there!¨ she encouraged. It was now 4 pm. Two hours of misdirected travelling, two hours of tram, bus, bus, walking and heat. The end of was nigh, and our hearts swelled as we walked a little faster. These were the words of a seasoned Opfinger Sea attendee, and we couldn´t wait. We powered on. The sun became a bit colder. And then, finally, finally, we saw a clearing.
We scampered up the rocks to drink in the views, wiping the sweat out of our eyes as we took a minute to catch our breath. Then, we simultaneously recoiled. So many people. So many couples. So many groups lying down:
All. Very. Naked.
We all started laughing hysterically as a man with longish salt and pepper hair sauntered past, making direct eye contact with me, and basically requesting me to scope out his privates. We past another pair, a 50-something year old man and woman, pretty much consummating on the grass to the side of the walking trail. And then the line of eight super-attractive, nonchalant, 20-something year olds- boys and girls, all sitting cross legged in a line along the path, Raybans on, their fingers adorned with trendy rings and jewellery. Again, all of them making defiant direct eye contact as we shuffled past, challenging us to check out their everything. We snorted with laughter and kept our eyes straight ahead. It was ridiculously funny.
When we´d passed through the gauntlet of naked people, again cursing the website for failing us (I´m pretty sure most people would consider ¨this is a nudist beach¨ a fast fact that ought to be disclosed), we found a shady patch of grass, turned on some Mexican tunes and dozed the afternoon away.
Word of the day: Nackt, meaning ¨naked¨, because we essentially trekked really, really, ridiculously far to see a beach full of naked people.