Trains and Trouble

We're currently staying with some more folks that friends of Amanda's know. They are really kind. The wife is German and the husband is in the US Army. The wife made us traditional food today. We had German dumplings, pork, and this sweet sauerkraut stuff, and a very tasty gravy. I really enjoyed it.

We had a horrible time trying to get here though. We were supposed to spend the day in Rothenburg, seeing the down. We left our hostel around 10:30, and expected to be there by around 1. However, I was a little nervous about the train transfers, and apparently I should have been. It was horrible!

We had looked up everything the night before, and wrote down as much information as we could, because we were going to some little stations that weren't listed in our book. Well, we made a mistake and got off too early on one station, but then it wasn't hard to just get back on and get to the right place. We were supposed to come in at 1:03 and then catch a 1:10 train. Well, we waited at the platform the computer stated, but the train didn't come. Well, the next time we checked the computer, it said we needed to get the 2:10 train, so we figured we had missed it. So we waited another hour.

As we were going up to the platform this time, a man stopped us and told us "no train." He bade us follow him. So we did, where he took us to the bus part of the station. We looked it up and there was a bus to Rothenburg. However, as far as we could tell, the bus had left at 1:30, and but hopefully there was another at 2:45. So we sat outside the station and waited. It was freezing! Well, 2:45 came and went and no bus showed up. Amanda wanted to find out if we were really doing the right thing. So we went to information, and she also informed us that yes, we had to wait for a bus.

Well, what we had been afraid was true. There wasn't a train apparently from this station, though both the internet the night before and the computer system they had said that we should have been able to catch on. We had to take a bus, and it wasn't going to be there until 4:50. (We were supposed to meet someone to pick us up so we could stay with them at 6. So we were getting pretty nervous.) So we went back inside to wait for another two hours.

Finally, it was time, and yay! the bus was there. However, the driver had to take a little break, and get a cup of coffee. Then, we loaded on, not being able to use our rail passes, we had to pay. By this time, it was getting dark and we weren't really sure where we were going. So we were pretty nervous about missing our stop because we couldn't read the signs.

Thankfully, we made it to Rothenburg only a bit after 6. (Apparently it's normally like a 20 minute trip, which we managed in about an hour twenty.) (Even more ironically, the guy who picked us up works in the city we were stuck in for hours. So he could have picked us up there!) However, we finally made it and are now nice and cosy in a lovely big bed, full of food and quite happy.