travel lessons

I literally just got back within the last hour from my little weekend pop on down to italy. For one - it was a fantastic vacation. It is literally one of the big reasons that I wanted to live in europe...for the freedom to do things like this a little bit easy.

So I left on friday and started off by making some real rookie moves. First off - know the time that your flight comes in so that when people are coming to pick you up they can be there at the correct time. Luckily I was only off by about 20 minutes, so I had some time to wait and enjoy Italians, and start my judging. Second, like a responsible flyer I shut off my cell phone, completely forgetting I have no clue what the PIN number for my iphone was. This was going to be fine for the weekend, perhaps not the greatest if I did end up needing to call Cat. Luckily there were pay phones in the event of an emergency. It was going to however be problematic for coming back to Germany, because of the wonderful Deutsche Bahn app....amazing. 

I would have probably looked up train transfer times before I got back to Italy, but I knew for sure I needed to get my connections last night so that I could plan what I was going to do and where I needed to go - pretty standard procedure...

I clearly did not plan that aspect of my trip very well, and completely over anticipated the number of transfers. 

Using only public transport from when my plane was supposed to land (at 21:40), would get me home at around 6 am...not what I was looking for. At first I was literally freaking out that I was going to have to sleep at the train station. The Baden Airpark does not have a great shuttle service and at night this is even less so. Honestly, leaving the airport in Ciampino I had no plan on how I was getting home. I was lucky enough that I am not a worrier and I actually started to accept that I just was not going to sleep enough. For me it just was not worth the money...like I am not going to pay 67 euros to get to karlsruhe - that is ridiculous.

I was hoping that on the plane I would end up meeting some nice german couple that would be able to bring me a little further down the road. Sadly, it was French people from strasbourg that I got...but then as we were landing I was listening to the people behind me talking about the long train ride they had in front of them. I butted in and asked them soo many details. I figured that my best bet was going to be getting a taxi into town to get the train that would get me in at about 1:55 into Darmstadt (not even home yet). I was going to get them to try to split the taxi, but those cheap beestings did not have any interest in that. I figured I was going to have to shell out the thirty euros on my own, but that is so much for a 15 minute ride. 

Anyways we landed, I still didn't really have a plan, but then I found out that we had landed twenty minutes early. That's great, maybe there would be a quicker bus to the airport. Not the case...

I then headed over to the taxi stand to maybe hope that someone would want to split a cab. I could see the bus from where the taxi stand was so I figured if I don't find anyone in time I will just take the bus. It's quite logical. 

Gott Sei Dank! A miracle happened, these wonderful people two from syria and one from jordan (so random) adopted me to ride in the taxi with them. I got right aggressive in there...thank goodness I did. When I got to the train station I was able to catch an even earlier train, better than the one I was praying that I wouldn't miss. But boy was it tight, I got my ticket, but realized I did not know any of the stops in between. So as my schedule is printing out I am seeing the train coming. I had to book it.

but I made it. and I am home now. and it is currently 1:32. It is time for bed!!

So life lesson: If I had known the pin number to my iphone I would have not needed to panic nearly as much and it would have made things way easier for me getting back to Germany.