I’m sort of a control freak. I tend to plan out
everything, obsessively creating lists and timetables. So when it came to
planning my eight-week stint in Europe with Faeth, I decided the best thing to
do to preserve my sanity would be to loosen up and take a more relaxed
approach. I think I may have swung a little too far towards the “extremely
laid-back” side, though, since we didn’t book any hostels or really make any
concrete plans after visiting the relatives. This worked out all right in
Cologne, a smaller city that’s not quite so touristy, but it ended very badly
when we arrived in Munich and couldn’t find a place to stay for the night.
All the hostels were booked, and most of the hotels,
too—except the extremely pricey ones. We thought about our position and decided
to move on to another, smaller town. We’d wanted to visit the famous Swan
Castle—Schloss Neuschwanstein—anyway, so we decided to hop a
train closer to that site. The train ride ended up taking about four hours, and
we got to view the majestic Alps at sunset—a breathtaking site. It felt like we
were riding through a fairytale. But the problem with fairytales is that
they’re not real, and we eventually discovered that our idealistic quest was
doomed to failure: when we bailed out at 10:00 p.m. in the ritzy tourist town
of Lindau, we realized our map was a little off. We were nowhere near
Neuschwanstein, and, despite several locals assuring us we could find lodging,
there were no hotels available in Lindau, either.
Now we were really in a pickle. We flirted with the
idea of taking a night train, just to have a place to stay that wasn’t on the
street, but the only night train available was down because of a tree that had
fallen on its tracks. The only hotels we could find that were open were way too
pricey for two poor college backpackers, and the train station itself closed at
1:30 a.m., so we couldn’t even crash there for the night. It’s a pretty
terrible feeling to stand on the road at 10:30 p.m. in a foreign country, where
most people don’t even speak your language, and not know where you’re going to
sleep.
God was definitely looking out for us when one local
suggested walking down the street towards the ritzy hotels. We went into one,
desperate enough to pay $100 or more dollars a night just for a bed. This
particular hotel was far more expensive than that, but the man at the reception
desk was kind enough to call around and find us a hotel that could work—only
126 euro, or roughly $190 dollars. It was way more than the usual $20 we were
used to paying for a hostel, but it was a safe place to spend the night for two
scared foreign girls. The only catch was that it was across the border in
Austria. There wasn’t really anything we could do about it but grab a taxi and
add another country to our “have visited” list. We arrived in Austria around
11:00 p.m. and left it the next morning by 10:00… we weren’t even there 12
hours.
The hotel, while very ritzy on the lower level,
really wasn’t that luxurious, but we had no complaints as we sank into bed. The
next morning, as we used the faulty wi-fi to check out hostels in Munich, we
noticed a disheartening pattern: there was nothing available, just like before.
We really wanted to visit that city, but we weren’t sure how we could if we
still didn’t know where we’d sleep for three days. Instead, we decided the only
logical thing to do would be to return to our relatives in Leer. They’d
promised us help if we ever needed it, and boy did we need it!
In one day, we managed to go from Austria to
northern Germany—12 hours by train roughly. Along the way, we tried to call our
relatives, but both our phones stopped working. Luckily, we had Gerda’s
business card, so we used train station pay phones to try to get a message
through. I was able to leave a voice mail on Ralph’s phone, but I could never
connect well with Gerda. We couldn’t find internet access, either, so we
started to get a bit nervous: Would anyone be waiting for us at the station? We
had their address at least, so we figured if worst came to worst, we’d call a
taxi.
We arrived in Leer around 9:00 p.m., later than
expected because we’d missed a connection and then the train had been delayed
(Germany punctuality, indeed!). To our unspeakable relief, we spotted Frank and
Petra, Gerda’s nephew and his girlfriend, waiting for us. As soon as we bailed
off the train, I ran into their arms and burst into tears (Faeth was a bit more
collected). It turns out they hadn’t really been able to understand my message,
so they’d posted relatives in the two stations near Leer and had staked out the
area for the past two hours to make sure we wouldn’t be missed. They took us
home, fed us our first real meal in the last two days, and calmed us down. I’m
still amazed at all their kindness and generosity in rescuing two stranded,
clueless and desperate relatives.
Looking back over the whole crazy adventure, I
realized two things: first, our family in Germany is unbelievably fantastic.
Second, even though it’s good to stay flexible and laid-back, a little bit of
planning is probably wiser than just showing up in a foreign city. You’ve got
to balance between the two extremes… or you, too, could end up making a 10-hr
midnight visit to a unexpected country.
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