Toledo, Spain (Castle hostel where I stayed)

Sete, France

Sete, France (Mediterranian coast), 5 May, 1986:  I'm bopping around the South of France like James Coburn in that Mastercard ad.  Today is a relax-on-the-beach day after 2 and 1/2 days of bicycling from Barcelona.  There are about 15 topless young women lying in a string beside me, but I don't speak French.  I probably wouldn't even be able to speak English to them ... just gibberish.

Things are significantly more expensive here in France than in Spain.  If it wasn't for youth hostels, I'd be going over my budget.  I paid $1.50 for a small bottle of Pepsi.

It was great to be back in my favorite city of Barcelona.  I visited the senora (who hosted me during my Spanish classes).

The weather and the scenery has been great for the past six weeks, with only about 1 and 1/2 days of rain total for the entire time.

I'm continuing by bicycle from here to Avignon, France, then taking a train to somewhere in Southern Germany, and bicycling up to Gary's arriving probably around May 22.

Au revoir,

Dean

Frankfurt, West Germany, 26 May 1986:  Wie Gehts (How goes it)?  I received my money and deposited in the bank here.  The money should last me into September.  Assuming you're still coming, you can hand-carry the money next time in the form of travelers checks.  They get a substantially higher exchange rate than cashiers checks.

Yesterday, I participated with Gary and Gisela and twenty to thirty-thousand others in a demonstration in favor of shutting down the nuclear power plants in Germany.  It is just one of many such demonstrations that have occurred and are planned since the Chernobyl nuclear accident a month ago.  This particular demonstration marched to the largest power plant in the country, whose containment walls are said to be one-third worn away -- even though the government still claims it to be safe.

Radioactivity is a major concern here.  When I read Time and Newsweek, I get the impression that Americans have better things to think about, such as summer vacation.  Gary is ordering a geiger counter from America because they're all sold out in Germany.  The Iodine 131 radioactive isotope has a half-life of eight days.  That means every eight days it loses half of its current level of radioactivity until gradually it becomes a stable element.  Among the harmful chemicals released from Chernobyl, it is especially poisonous.  The rain puts it on the ground, into the rivers and onto the grass cows eat, into the cows milk, and if we drink it, it may accumulate to toxic quantities in our thyroid glands.

In a few weeks, Iodine 131 will have declined to about 1/16th its original radioactivity, but there are numerous other isotopes with half-lives in the thousands of years.  In the short term, people are keeping their children out of the sand, changing some of their eating habits, worrying a lot, and taking to the streets to at least see if they can prevent it from happening in Germany, and be an example for the rest of the world.  They believe that Germany has the technology to be a world leader in developing alternative sources of energy.

Having said all that, you are probably not surprised by the fact that I'm going to a location near Chernobyl.  In your eyes, I've been living on the edge of danger during this whole trip.  Actually, I think that it will be an interesting and safe experience in most respects.  I'll be with 100 others from various countries, including 20 Soviet students.  In the morning, we will pick cheeries on a collective farm (I think I'll avoid eating them).  (Note that it turned out instead to be digging the soil around apricot trees).  In the afternoon, we will discuss peace and disarmament, cooperation and the environment, and in the evening, we will socialize (no pun intended).

If I can get the appropriate visas on time, I will take a train through Berlin and Warsaw to Moscow.  I meet with the group in Moscow on the 25th of June, they fly us to Zaporozhe near the Black Sea on the 26th (turned out to be by train), the workcamp lasts until July 4th, and then they give us a tour of Kiev (less than 100 miles from Chernobyl) on the 5th and 6th before bringing us back to Moscow.  All transportation, food and communal housing for 11 days costs a total of $100.  I hope to continue by train to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and then start my Eurail pass in Finland and travel around Scandinavia.

I'm not sure what the exposure to fallout will do to me in Kiev.  All in all, it's just another brick in the wall.  If the 3 million citizens of Kiev can handle it for the rest of their lives, I can take it for two days.  Most radioactivity spread to the north west.  It's likely worse over Poland and Scandinavia, where I will also be.

As far as the fact that I worked for the Defense Department goes, they didn't tell me when I left my job that I couldn't go to the Soviet Union.  I don't plan on telling them what I used to do, and in the remote possibility that they know or even care, I no longer have access to information anyway.  What I know is next to nothing of any value.  No one should care.

The problem is timing.  It will be two weeks before I receive the confirmation for the workcamp.  I can pick up the visas in Bonn and Cologne for East Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union.  Meanwhile, it takes ten days to get hotel confirmations for Soviet hotels and they are quite expensive.  I may only have time to get a glance of Moscow and Leningrad from the train window because of my limited time beforehand for making arrangements.

I don't know what you were talking about when you mentioned terrorism on a British ferry.  The news said nothing over here, and if it were truly important, there's no reason they wouldn't mention it.  More people die on the highways every day, and you don't warn me about riding in cars.  The fear of terrorism by Americans is grossly out of proportion with reality.  That is not to say that there will not be a lot more to come.  Worrying about it is unnecessary.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Dean

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