TRAVEL | TRAVEL STORY | TRANSPORTATION | GERMANY

A Disastrous Reintegration Into the Western World — Part Two

How often does a bus leave 25 minutes before its scheduled departure?

Modern architecture in Cologne, Germany along the Rhine River. Photo Credit: Jillian Amatt

Because we only had a limited amount of cash at this point, we didn’t fancy spending all of it on a hotel night in Frankfurt. In fact, we didn’t even know if we even had enough for a night in Frankfurt. My prior research had shown me that hotels and hostels in this city were not cheap. You may recall that we were meant to stay at a girl’s house in Cologne the previous night. Spending a lot of money on a hotel was not really in our current budget.

My Dad is a member of a hotel points system through Marriott Hotels. In the past, he has extended us some points to stay in some of their establishments. Usually, it is at a time when we are arriving or departing a destination and it makes our transition easier. But of course, we see it as a rare treat and we are always thankful for the little bit of luxury that we get to partake in.

As our train from the airport pulled into the Frankfurt Central Station, I had noticed a red-lit-up Marriott sign high up on a nearby skyscraper. I didn’t know it at that moment, but that small glimpse would come in handy.

After discussing many options and feeling like we had nowhere else to turn, in a moment of desperation, I decided to try face-timing my parents to see if they were awake in Canada, and to see if it would be possible for my dad to secure us a night there. I felt like we were at the end of our ropes and didn’t really know where else to turn.

Read Part One:

A Disastrous Reintegration Into the Western World — Part One

One missed bus, a bus that left 25 minutes early without us, and a debit card that wouldn’t work.

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Thankfully the terrible train station wifi worked long enough for me to connect with them. Dad needed to know exactly which Marriott hotel it was so that he could look it up to see if his points would work for it. I told him that we would walk there and find out, then call them back when we had more information.

About 15 minutes later we arrived in the lobby and I spoke to the concierge who told me the exact name of the hotel. I called my parents on FaceTime again, and Dad booked us a room. In all honesty, I don’t think this one was points eligible, but he booked it for us anyways. We were immensely grateful to have a place to rest and to put this stressful day behind us! Thanks, Dad!

That night I booked another bus ticket to Cologne for the following day, which left at around 1:00 pm. I am thankful that the Flixbus app accepted Paypal for payments. Though we knew that the ticket office would likely be open, and I still wanted to stop in to see if a refund was possible for our missed bus, we didn’t want to leave booking the next part of our journey that late. Of course, we also now knew that last-minute bus tickets were much more expensive than even the ones the day before.

We languished in the luxurious bed, the first really comfortable sleep we had had in a while since the beds we had been staying in at our accommodation in Greece for the past month had not been the greatest. We slept in a little and finally dragged ourselves out of the hotel at around 11:30 am. We had a 15-minute walk to our 1:00 pm bus, but we were definitely going to make damn sure that we didn’t miss it after what we had already gone through.

Arriving plenty early, we had an opportunity to grab some lunch at the nearby train station. I then remembered that a lady had recommended that we try Apfelwein while in Frankfurt. Just down from our bus waiting area was a convenience store so I wandered down to see if they had any and was thrilled that they did.

So there we sat, sitting on concrete blocks on the sidewalk, drinking Apfelwein in the sunshine. It was just the pick-me-up we needed to make the rest of our journey a little more enjoyable. Photo Credits: Jillian Amatt

The bus ride was only about 2.5-3 hours, so we arrived with plenty of daylight, and when I mapped the location of the apartment, I realized that it was only a 20-minute walk from the central station. Despite being told by the neighbor which city bus to take, we opted to walk instead.

The first thing we saw as we stumbled out of the train station was the immense and iconic Cologne Cathedral.

The Cologne Cathedral is literally right outside the train station doors and is impossible to miss. Photo Credits: Jillian Amatt

Though we could see that people were welcome to go inside and look around, this was not that moment for us. We needed to get ourselves and our luggage to our friend's apartment before we played tourists.

Thanks to Google Maps, we were directed along pathways that lined the Rhine River, and we easily made our way to the apartment. We were relieved to arrive and were happy to know that we had two nights to enjoy in the city.

It felt like things were going smoothly for us, for now.

While I would love to tell you all about our time spent in Cologne, I have decided to save that for another post since this article is meant to highlight the disasters that we faced on our journey to Amsterdam. So let’s just say that we had a lovely time exploring the area of the city where we were staying. We even managed to connect with a friend that we had made in Turkey that lived in Dusseldorf. She hopped on the train to come to see us for our only full day in the city.

Some colorful buildings and a lot of history in Cologne. Photo Credits: Jillian Amatt

While in Cologne, we also booked the next leg of our traveling journey. We had two nights already booked in Amsterdam near the airport and looked forward to spending time exploring the city. The last, and only, time that we were there was back in 2015 when we had a 23-hour layover. Then, we were bagged from jetlag and really didn’t have the energy to see much and we were eager to make up for that this time around.

We longed to wander the adorable canals and explore more of the city that we missed the last time.

We weighed all transportation options but settled once again on Flixbus. But this time, instead of taking just a bus, our booking told us to take the Flixtrain for 25 minutes, then we would get off the train and take a bus for the remaining 3 hours of the trip. It was all purchased on one ticket, which came with explicit instructions on how to get from the train station to our bus departure location. We had 29 minutes to walk a 3-minute distance, so I was very confident that we would have no problems at all with making the connection.

The bus was to leave before 8:00 am and our schedule said that we would reach Amsterdam at around 11:00 am. We were thrilled with this because we knew that we could go drop stuff off at our hotel, then head back into the city to enjoy the afternoon and a bit of nightlife that evening. We only had a day and a half in the city and we wanted to make the most of it.

Our train thankfully left on time, so we were confident that we would make the connection. At the tail end of the train ride, I felt like I had to pee, but I figured that there would be a bathroom at the bus stop that I could use. So I waited.

We left the train and hurried through the station corridors following the directions from my phone that led us out to the bus waiting area. We burst out of the main doors to the station, walked a block, and as we rounded the corner we saw a Flixbus leaving a parking area.

“There is a Flixbus!” Chris announced.

I was relieved as it showed that we were at least heading in the right direction.

“Well, that one won’t be ours, I’m sure.” It was 25 minutes before our bus was scheduled to depart so I was certain that it was a bus going somewhere else.

I should mention here that this was on a Sunday. We were warned by our friend that visited us in Cologne that traveling on Sundays can be complicated because the schedules are different and ticket offices are closed. But since we already had our tickets, we didn’t pay her warning too much attention.

However, when we finally arrived to the bus exchange, we would learn why this was an inconvenience. By now I really had to pee and the only building that was there, the ticketing office with the bathrooms in it, was closed tight.

Crap!

I hummed and hawed trying to decide if I should run back to the train station. I probably spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what to do before I spotted a gas station about 300m away from us.

“I’ll just go to the gas station!” I yelled at Chris before I took off sprinting toward it. By now our time was getting tight before our bus was to leave, so I was starting to panic a bit. But I knew that there wouldn’t be a toilet on the bus, so I had to go somewhere.

I ran full tilt to the gas station, my legs screaming at me in the process. I’m not a runner and it had been many years since I ran any distance, let alone sprinted (I was stiff for days after this!). I arrived at the counter gasping and wheezing, “Can I please use the bathroom?”

“That man just took the key, you will have to wait 10 minutes.” He said as he pointed out the door to a man walking slowly across the lot to the bathroom building.

I bolted after him.

“Sir, can I please use the bathroom first?” I begged. “My bus is coming in a few minutes. I will be very fast, I promise.”

He rolled his eyes, “This is not good lady. This is not a good thing at all.” He told me in broken English.

“I’m so sorry, but my bus is coming. Please, I will be really fast!”

He reluctantly handed me the key and I bolted into the bathroom. In record time I was finished and out again. I thanked him profusely and started sprinting back to the bus exchange.

Arriving back gasping and wheezing, I was happy that our bus hadn’t arrived yet. But slowly, as time ticked by, my relief turned to annoyance when our bus didn’t show up at all.

We waited and waited for our bus to arrive, losing hope moment by moment.

To make matters worse, there was an electronic sign that stated our bus number and an indicator next to it that said ‘on time’. Well, it actually said it in German, but I asked somebody to translate it for me so we knew what it meant. When this man told me what it said, I told him that it was already 20 minutes late. He was as confused about it as we were, but of course, had no answers for us.

Finally, after waiting 45 minutes past the scheduled arrival time, we were now cold and defeated. This was in March, and it wasn’t exactly warm out. We both had on all of our cold-weather gear, and it wasn’t enough, so we finally decided to wander back towards the train station to see if we could find some wifi and some heat.

There was a nice-looking hotel near the station so we went in and I explained the situation to the front desk agent while asking him if he minded if we warmed up and used the wifi. Thankfully he didn’t mind.

“Is it normal for Flixbus to not show up?” I asked.

“No, it isn’t. I’ve never heard of this happening before.” He told me.

I managed to get on the Flixbus website and noticed an area where you can check on the status of a bus. For any bus number, you can see if it is on time or late, or whatever. Of course, I was aghast when I entered in our bus number only to see a notification saying that the bus had departed 25 minutes early!

It was then that I realized that the bus we saw pulling out actually WAS our bus!

To be continued……

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