Lucky Call

This particular day was BEAUTIFUL...all emphasis intended!

It was my birthday weekend (I turned 22 in this picture) and I wanted to experience something memorable this weekend...oh did we 🤦🏽‍♂️.

The guys and I were supposed to go to Berlin so we could see "The Wall" BUT, an old buddy of mine from back home decided to call me two hours prior to the time we had to catch one of the trains to get there.

I need at most 45 minutes to get ready in any case including this momentous occasion.

So this man called me asking to get advice on something that I knew would take some time to talk about but knowing that I don't like rushing, I had to do that in this case. I only wanted us to talk for 30 minutes (15 to talk about his side of things & 15 for me to advise) and if there's more that needs to be discussed, we could set up another time to chop it up. SIKE!

This dude kept going on and on and even though everything was planned out perfectly from start to meeting up for our initial train ride, I still needed to get ready!

By the time I got him off the phone, I literally had to shower and make sure everyone was ready to catch our train by 9:30 pm that night and it was 8:55 by this point. I rushed beyond belief but came out to all of the guys ready to go so, from there, we began walking towards the station only to find out halfway there...

"FUCK" I bellowed angrily.

"What..what happened?" the guys quickly asked.

"I forgot our group train ticket!"

Some of the guys kept going so they could at least catch the train from Landstuhl (where our base was) to Kaiserslautern which only took 10 minutes max. It was up to me and one of the guys who went back with me to get the ticket to catch that Kaiserslautern ride. Once we arrived to my room, I pulled my wallet out to get my room key and...

"FUUUUUCCCCKKKKK" I yelled intensely.

I locked my room key in the room along with our group train ticket for Berlin.

By this time it was too late to catch the Landstuhl train but we still had time to catch the Kaiserslautern one. All I needed to do at this point was go to the building that was a few steps from our barracks building to get the master key. Turned out those guys who ran that building were nowhere to be found and to our misfortune, we were pressed for time.

I called one of the guys going on the trip to see if he still had access to that digital scan ticket...

And he did thankfully!

I immediately called my supervisor and asked him to drive us to the Kaiserslautern station and he willingly did. From there, I thought everything was good and we definitely dodged a bullet.

For long train trips within Germany, especially if you're coming from the western side of the country, the main stop after Kaiserslautern is typically Mannheim which will usually take you to your final destination. So we arrived at the Mannheim station and literally had 30 seconds to catch the following ride to Berlin. Since I didn't have the paper ticket, I figured the digital one that my buddy had would suffice enough to get on that train.

NOPE! One of the most annoying characteristics you'll experience from a good portion of Germany is the fact that they're so behind in how they operate with technology. The steward gentleman didn't want to accept our digital scan ticket and kept saying that we needed the paper one.

Luck just wasn't on our side that entire night as you're probably saying to yourself right now haha...AND YOU'RE RIGHT!

After all we paid and planned for that particular trip, we were pissed beyond measure. The next train there was out of the price range for what we were willing to pay in that moment. So it took a minute for us to discuss about where everyone was willing to go from there. There was no way that we were going to waste that weekend because I dropped the ball.

I asked the fellas, "What about going to Munich? Have y'all been there yet?"

They irritably responded, "No but we need to figure something out."

"Let's get the ticket since it's not expensive and we'll just spend the rest of the weekend there" I proclaimed hopefully.

A few hours later, we ended up in sunny Munich and the first place we decided to go was the BMW Headquarters. Even though I'm not crazy about BMW's, it was a cool location with a lot going on there...

It's safe to say that I made a great call suggesting to go there when tensions were high from the money and time wasted due to what happened. I made it a point to have the guys not dwell on it as well as myself and just enjoy the moments we had there.

By the way, Munich has some of the best Indian cuisine you'll find within the entire country of Germany...you should check it out sometime when you get the chance! I don't remember the names of the exact restaurants we went to, but I do remember the general area. I'll tell you what, next time I'm that way, I'll get those names for you how does that sound? :)