Having to catch 12 international trains in as many days, traveling light was a must.

Paris at dawn on a Sunday is a special thing. The leafy boulevards are empty, save for a few high-spirited drunks, and as the sun comes up, you start to dream you are walking inside an impressionist painting. To have a German train to catch at 6:15 a.m. is more than a mild annoyance.

But my spirits rose when I arrived in Backnang, a small town some 20 miles outside of Stuttgart, in southern Germany. I met Franz and Brunhilde Hegemann there, a couple in their 50s, with three daughters in their 20s. They had fled what was once East Germany.

Franz and Brunhilde Hegemann

It was January 1989. Each of the five previous years, in preparation for fleeing their homeland, Franz and Brunhilde had gone to West Germany to visit their family. Those family ties allowed them to leave East Germany legally -- although legalities were unpredictable and could change on official whim. In 1988, Franz had started the official emigration process.

Just after the new year, Franz learned that they had gotten the permit, but he didn't know which day they would be allowed to go. "I went to the train station every single morning for two weeks and got five place reservations for the day. We had tickets, but without those reservations, we would have been kicked off the train."

Brunhilde's exit passport from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was valid for a single day: January 16, 1989.

Then, on January 15, the word came that they would be going the next day. They packed up the entire apartment -- a murky blockhouse flat that the government had allotted to them -- and cleaned it. With their three young girls in tow, they hauled everything they could carry to the train station. They had signed papers forfeiting their citizenship in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Franz got up from his sunlit porch and went into the house to fish out the documents. He showed me the passports that enabled them to go to the West. They were valid for one day: January 16, 1989.

"We had no future in the GDR," Brunhilde said. Of course, they didn't know at that point that the GDR had little future itself. The two Germanys would unite in less than 10 months, although "we sensed nothing of that in January. The state was as strong as ever."

The Stuttgart main square, where the local summer festivities take place

Now, there were only a few signs that distinguished them from ordinary West Germans. They didn't own their house, but it was big and nice, and their country's wealth and success had clearly washed off on them. On the weekends, they drove their BMW around Germany and sometimes traveled to Switzerland, Holland or France. Still, they didn't take things for granted, they said, and they probably never would.

But their children had grown up in this new world. One worked in Scotland now, another had recently gotten married in a nearby town and the youngest lived the life of a college student. At 3 p.m., she was sleeping upstairs. "She came home in the morning," Brunhilde smiled. This peaceful existence, they said, had much to do with Germany's role as a powerhouse of Europe and a leader of the European Union.

"The E.U. guarantees freedom and peace," Brunhilde said. "It helps the next generation to a global thinking." She wanted to see Europe grow mightier than the United States, economically and politically. Americans could be taught a lesson of peace then, she insisted.

"We are big friends of America," Franz added. "I've been there five times, or six. Atlanta, Mississippi, New York. I love New York. I've been on top of the World Trade Center, back in 1996. It was amazing. It was beautiful."

Stuttgart Main Station, with the train that would take me back to Paris

They drove me back to Stuttgart, where the local summer festivities -- music, pork and beer, this being Germany -- were under way. We ate a pizzalike local delicacy, strolled around Schlossgarten Park a bit, then said goodbye. I settled on a nearby bench, determined to stay awake, but the sun, the summer breeze and the reggae streaming out of a nearby café proved to be stronger. I slept like a baby, and when I came to, I saw that dozens of people were stretched out on the lawn around me, sleeping. If I had ever thought Stuttgart was only interesting because of Porsche and Mercedes, I was wrong. Its reggae is world-class too.

It was time to leave. I had to catch a night train, which this time wasn't going to be a nightmare. I bought the sleeper berth (for a mere 10 euros), so that when I woke up in Paris the next morning, I would be rested -- ready to resume my life in this new hybrid Europe that is busy being born.

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