Traveling in itself is one of the greatest experiences a human being can have but as with everything, it can obviously get ugly. Fast. Fortunately (or not so much), I can say I’ve experienced some of the worst of it. After all, now that it’s over with, it could never happen again right? Heh, probably not. Let’s just be honest here.
I had just finished my semester in Britain so all the final assessments were just now over and there were two weeks before Christmas. Great time to visit Germany before Christmas right? Yes, you’re 100% right. Glühwein and the Munich Christmas markets were waiting. Now, this wasn’t just an easy trip where I could grab my backpack for a few days and jump on a plane and back unfortunately. My one term in the UK was over so by leaving the country, I was leaving for good.
No problem. All I have to do is safely get a year’s worth of clothes and supplies to Kaufering, Germany. This includes:
- A twenty pound backpack filled with laptops and books.
- A completely filled rolling carry-on suitcase
- A forty-five pound duffle bag
- A camera bag
7:00:
My initial trip to the airport went well. I managed to just beat rush hour to Birmingham International and had a decent first experience with Uber (yeah, honestly). We spent a good portion of time listening to the BBC’s take on Donald Trump back in America.
9:00:
I didn’t know I was required to take my Surface tablet out of my backpack for security screening so that means security is required to unpack my entire backpack right in front of me. It only took her 5 minutes to throw everything out so by the time she got my backpack emptied, the two tray tables needed were just a brilliant mess of power bricks, chargers, books, pens, and whatever crap I couldn’t fit in my duffle bag but thought I should take home anyway. The woman felt bad, I felt bad, so I guess it just evened out. It only took me ten minutes to pack again.
12:00:
I had my hour long layover in Copenhagen. It’s one of the cleanest airports I’ve ever seen. I spent that hour cruising all of the shops in they had there. There was even a full size H&M there. I think it’s an awful idea, personally, but secretly I’m impressed.
16:00 (GMT +1):
So far everything has gone as planned and I made it to the Munich airport. I nervously walked down to the baggage claim knowing they probably lost my massive duffle bag. Surprise! They didn’t.
Nothing can go wrong now...
I was in Munich International Airport and Kaufering is close to an hour away by train. All I had to do was jump on one of the many S-Bahns (frequent city trains), jump off when I got to the city center, and grab one of the regional trains to Kaufering. Simple enough right?
If only I knew that at the time.
I’ve never been to Germany before, I can’t speak German, and worst of all I couldn’t have told you the difference between the S-Bahn or the regional trains that go well outside past the city so realistically, I was confident but definitely clueless. Being confidently oblivious is both a blessing and a curse.
16:15:
I made my first error of the journey by getting on the wrong S-Bahn apparently. The doors opened and I had to stop and throw my duffle bag into the train because otherwise my suitcase would have fallen through the gap between the train and the platform. The train was fairly empty so I sat across a woman and managed to hog the other three seats in our row because of all of my bags. I only felt bad about this as we got close to the main station where all the standing rush hour people coming home from work had to accept I was in fact, taking up three perfectly good seats. Sorry but not sorry. Kinda…
We approached the central station but I decided to not get off because I was looking for “Munich-Pasing” which, for some reason or another, I was looking for even though I thought in the back of my mind that I should be getting off at the central station.
“My station will be the next stop or two. I’m sure of it” I said as the doors closed.
By the time we were obviously well out of the city, I knew I screwed up. Munich-Pasing never actually happened so I jumped (more like pushed my way off with my 60+ pounds of luggage) off at the next stop I could before I did any more damage.
17:00
By this time I should have been close to Kaufering but I definitely wasn’t. I couldn’t tell you where I was to be honest so I pulled out my phone to get directions….only to remember I have a pre-paid British SIM card which is, for all intents and purposes, completely useless outside of Great Britain.
No problem, time to problem solve the old fashioned way.
I took a look at the map and decided to take the S-Bahn one more stop in the original direction I was going to get to the important(ish) looking station I saw on the map. By now it was the peak of rush hour so only standing room on the train. “Too bad people” I say to myself as I squish myself through the crowd of people with all my bags again. I was a lot heavier than most people with everything so I really had the physical leverage in this situation. Everyone had the “must really suck to be this guy” look on their face and you know what? They weren’t at all wrong.
17:20
I find an information desk where they luckily spoke a little English. I told the woman
“I need to get to ‘KAW-FERING’, where do I need to go?”
Obviously I freaked out a bit when she just looks at me confused so I repeat the same thing. Twice, finally she seems to somewhat understand and directs me to a train which I noticed was going in the opposite direction that I thought I needed. I had my doubts so I asked a random guy (who conveniently didn’t speak English) to borrow his phone so I could find out where the hell I was going. Instead of getting on that train that would take me to the other side of the country, I jumped (rather waddled with my luggage) back onto the S-Bahn to take me back to the Munich. I was a bit happy that no one was checking tickets because my train hopping was probably somewhere in the 15-20 euro range.
I eventually found my final train after a half hour of pushing through people with all my luggage and had around an hour to waste. Instead of broadening my horizons with some German food I went straight to Burger King to let out my sadness there.
Sometime between 19:00 and 20:00
While eating my burger sitting on my giant duffle bag of clothes, I reflected on my journey so far and tried to thank how I’d actually managed to carry everything with me without any casualties. I finished my double cheeseburger quickly and exhaustively made my way to the train which still had 45 minutes before departure. It was a high train so I had to heave one bag in at a time into the bike storage room, which is where I was going to stay, because there was no way in hell I was going to fit in the comfortable regular seats. As the train filled with people, I soon realized it was going to be a full train so I did feel a bit like a jerk for taking up two chairs but again, sorry but really not sorry. Every now and then the man next to me would look over and quietly say something to me in German and I just smiled and laughed as soon he started smiling and laughing first and to this day, I don’t think he had any idea I couldn’t understand a single word he said. Hopefully he was actually telling jokes.
It was a good thing I memorized Kaufering was the third stop because there were no announcements in the train and only a few small windows in the bike room that didn’t do much help because it was so dark anyway. On the third stop, I stood up and everyone looked up and realized all the luggage belonged to me alone. “yeah, yeah, shut up” I say as I literally throw my bags outside of the train and practically kiss the ground I stood on. I had successfully managed to not be homeless that night.
And that friends is how it took me 12 hours to get from Birmingham, England to Kaufering, Germany. Suddenly now, trans-continental flights aren’t even bad anymore.