In fact, they were very easy.
We were not stressed, we knew where to go, and everything cooperated with us.
But September 16th was a different story.
A much different story.
We had the transport adventure of a lifetime.
We left Kandern at 7:45, having spent three days of fabulous quality time with our missionary friends. The bus ride to Muellheim was easy enough. We got to the train station with plenty of time and even made some train reservations for the 18th - thus I was feeling tired, but pretty confident. Bought myself some tea before getting on the train to Freiburg. Despite the fact that I was in my backpacker traveler get-up I was feeling pretty sophisticated with my tea and European scarf.
Ready to face the day.
We arrive in Freiburg and have only 5 minutes to transfer.
Wanetta and I hustle to our next platform in under 2 minutes.
Feeling confident.
Freiburg to Muellheim. Got to listen to music and take a nap. Awesome.
Find out the train will be 15 minutes late to Mannheim which means we will miss our next connection...
Not so awesome.
No worries though, there is bound to be another train going from Mannheim to Buchloe.
We get to Mannheim and go to the travel department where after waiting in line for a while we get ourselves a new train route. These new plans allow us to get straight to Fuessen without having to do the extra train switch that our old plans had!
Nice.
So Wanetta and I grab some McDonalds and phone our hotel to tell them we would have to check in late. Phoning in a train station through a German operator was quite the task. A bit of a headache. Thank goodness I know German!
Thus, after getting them to connect me to the wrong place I finally get through to the hotel and made sure everything was arranged for that night.
Feeling settled.
Back up to the platforms we go, and begin waiting for our new train. Some announcement starts going off in German, and at first I don't pay attention. But on the second round I listen.
This train isn't coming today.
We have to wait another hour for the next one.
Feeling frustrated.
And right when we wanted to go back up to the travel department the escalator wasn't working.
More stairs with big backpacks. Oh boy.
(Actually by this point I was just laughing because so much stuff had gone wrong and all of our plans for the evening with buses up to the hotel had to been thrown out the window. It WAS funny.)
We try to get a better train route but there are no other options. And now we are going to have to do a 3 minute train transfer - possible but NOT ideal.
Feeling concerned.
Another hour in Mannheim is on the agenda. We try to connect to the wifi - no success. Went shopping - some success.
And finally we go back up to the platform to catch our train to Buchloe.
Its going to be 10 minutes late.
Feeling ARGHHHH!
After waiting for what seemed like forever the train came.
And we got to Buchloe with no problems. 3 minute transfer begins.
THANKFULLY the trains are on the same platform so we can run across the tarmac and onto our FINAL connection.
The ride is beautiful.
Now in Fuessen we find a bus to get up to Hohenschwangau which is halfway to our hotel. Since our place is right next to Neuschwanstein castle we figure we can use one of their bus shuttles to get up there.
They are not running anymore.
Its a 40 minute walk UPHILL to get to the hotel.
With big backpacks.
And the sun is setting
Is this our only hope?
Wanetta's quick thinking saves the day: she suggests we phone the hotel and talk to them about the situation. So I go through some more German operator stuff and reach them first try! They are going to call a taxi for us that will bring us right to our rooms.
The taxi comes very quickly, the rate is really good, and we get up our hotel WAY faster than we would have by walking.
It would have been long and strenuous.
So, with the sun setting on the castle - WHICH WE CAN SEE FROM OUR HOTEL! - our travel adventure ends.
The room is lovely and a stroll up to Neuschwanstein leaves us with fabulous pictures.
Phew. What a day.
In the end we can only say that God got us through the day.
It was ridiculous, but prayers were answered and here we are.
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