It was at this point she realized that she had mistaken the arrival time in Basel for the departure time in Stuttgart, and our train had left almost the second we arrived late in Stuttgart.
We hurried down to the Reiseburo and ended up with a clerk that didn’t speak English. By that time, trying to get a train to Switzerland was difficult.
We took the next train to Karlsruhe, where we suddenly realized that the last city on the train list the Reiseburo gave us was Zürich, not Luzern. The last train to Luzern from either Basel (our next stop) or Zürich has already left.
We decided to go to Basel and just wait it out. I managed to sleep just a little on that train, until MG woke me, saying we were at Basel and needed to get off. We got out, and it was a desolate, tiny, cold station, with no walls, only a rook. Even if we were inclined to go to Zürich, the train on our schedule wasn’t leaving.
In fact, the only upcoming departure was to…Basel SBB. Apparently, there were two Basel stations, and we’d gotten off on the wrong one. So, we sat out in the cold, with no protection from the weather for 20 minutes. I got really angry at losing my only real chance to spend time in Switzerland.
We got on the train, which turned out to be an S-Bahn, not a train-train. Our tickets only covered actual trains, meaning we were riding without a ticket, schwarzfahren, for this trip. We started talking to the adorably eccentric-looking woman across the aisle. She was living in a suburb of Basel in a sort of hostel. She was the housekeeper, but I got the impression it was more like being an RA or house-sitter than an actual labor job. She offered us a room in her hostel, what amounted to the best accommodations so far on the trip, so we got out with her at Basel SBB. Unfortunately, her last tram had already left, and the next S-Bahn to her suburb was in more than an hour. She could wait for the train, or crash at an in-city friend’s place. She offered to wait the hour with us and still give us a room, but with how early we wanted to take the train to Luzern, we decided it would be easier not to.
I know this sign is blurry, but is there really a Swiss town named Frick?
We made our way to a long bench, curling up partially on top of our suitcases, so if we did happen to nap at all, people would have to wake us up to steal our stuff. I put on my money belt fro the first time of the trip, my purse strap around my torso, cuddled my luggage close, and tried not to freeze to death.
After no more than an hour of this, we gave up and sat up. MG finished Dexter, then gave it to me and returned to Oscar Wilde. We were pestered by a drunk, but ignored him. The guy sleeping on my left snored like an insane walrus. I was about ready to snap after 45 minutes of it. The police came by and woke everyone sleeping most indecorously on the floor.
The bathrooms were closed. For once in my life, I had gotten enough water, as it was free that afternoon, and the bathrooms were closed. During the day, they cost two francs, and rather than lose that money at night, they closed. Freaking….I definitely needed in there for my own rather obvious reasons, but it’s also good to note: MG and I were dressed for comparatively warm Frankfurt. Sure, it was windy out at das Haus der Andacht, but it was still warmer than the train station. I had shorts. MG had a skirt. The bench we were sitting on was aluminum and felt like ice against your skin. In America, which I was wholly missing at that point, I could use the bathroom, and we could both put on jeans, because the freaking bathrooms would be open. By around 5, I was wondering if I could hop on an early train, use its bathroom, and hop back out before it left.
I ate half a roll that I’d saved from whenever, but it wasn’t very filling, and Mary Grace had nothing at all. Finally at 5.00, the shops started opening, and we got some food. For me, an orange. For Mary Grace, an orange, a banana, a coffee, and a croissant.
No comments:
Post a Comment