Made it to Frankfurt without any hiccups. I landed on time and went to get my luggage. The plan was to get a sim card for my phone and text Mom. But the only place to buy a sim card was at a store called O2, which didn’t open until 11. It was only 7:15. Our backup plan was to meet at the intersection of concourse A and concourse B, in front of an Audi show car. (A friend suggested it as a good meeting place.) When I left the concourse to get my luggage I was not able to return. So now mom was waiting at the Audi and I had no way of contacting her. Hiccup numero uno. So I went to the help desk and had them page her over the airport loud speaker. Welcome to Germany!
We board our first train to Munich. Mom immediately falls asleep in the fetal position. I start playing Angry Birds. Every time the train slows, she opens her eyes and either says “Where are we?” or “You should be looking at this! Look at those houses!” And then immediately falls back asleep.
(Yes, that is a piece of chocolate.)
Im carefully listening for the word Munchen on the loudspeaker when the conductor finally mentions it. Mom pops up and says, “I think everybody is getting off here. Grab your stuff.” As we are scrambling to gather our things she asks the German man next to us if he speaks English. He nods.
“Did I just hear that if we are going to Munich that we should get off this train and board train 25?”
German nods again. We exit the train.
Its really cold out by the way. An unexpected 50 degrees. We start looking around and can tell that something is fishy. We are in Ulm. Mom says “Where the heck are we?!”
We both start laughing because we know we screwed up. We’ve been traveling for 26 hours now. We are sitting on our luggage, cold and exhausted in Ulm, Germany. A train pulls up. Mom gets up and says “This is it.”
“Mom, I don’t think it is. I don’t feel comfortable.”
“I do.”
I ask a man boarding next to us, “Do you speak English?”
“Yes”.
“Is this going to Munich?”
“No.”
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