As I explained in Part 1, in June of 2007 I took an impromptu trip to Germany, to save AC from boredom in a small town called Saarloius. Last time, I was just getting ready to fly from Toronto to Frankfurt in Germany. Despite the last-minute Air Transat booking, I managed to score an aisle seat, so I wasn’t quite as cramped as the poor suckers in the middle (Air Transat really packs ‘em in). After a several hour delay, we managed to take off, and eventually land without incident. The next step was to get on a train…

AC’s train trip was more exciting than mine, because when she flew to Germany she had no idea how to get from the airport to Saarloius. Actually she didn’t even know she was going to Saarloius. She barely had time to pack before we taxi’d out to the airport and put her on a plane. When she landed, she texted me: “now what?“. Over text message, I gave her directions and told her what to buy. Every half hour or so I would get a text from her that said something like: “In Mannheim - what next?“. And, half-way through the trip I found out that her destination had suddenly changed, so I had to re-direct her. Planning her route by text message, half-way around the world, was pretty exciting - it felt like something out of an action movie. Of course, when she finally got to Saarloius, she just went to her hotel, instead of breaking into an embassy or something like that…

Since I had my itinerary all planned out, my train ride was far more prosaic. There were a few times where I would get out at my stop and discover that I was standing on what seemed like an abandoned platform in the middle of nowhere. But, inevitably another train would show up, right on time.

So, after something like 14 hours of travel, I finally made it to Saarloius, and met my Skype nemesis - the angry old man who ran the hotel front desk at night and spoke not a word of English. At first he seemed a bit icy - I’m not sure he realized I was AC’s husband, and not just some tourist she had found at a bar, and was clearly irritated when I hung out in the lobby trying to use the wireless internet. But, eventually we bonded when I worked up the nerve to ask him how to make outgoing calls. After some initial confusion, he grabbed my hand and pointed it at the phone, shouting “NULL” (which he pronounced “knool“). I realized that he meant I needed to dial 0 before making outgoing calls, but he wasn’t sure I got it, so he shouted “knool” at me a few more times, with increasing volume, until he decided he had said it loud enough that I understood. After this incident, he was as friendly as any other angry old German man (at least, I think he was friendly….).

Next up: sausage.

Posted January 9th, 2008 at 1:32 am. Filed under travel.
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