Monday, August 24, 2009

Brian and I both landed safely in Frankfurt today and successfully found each other even though our planes came into Frankfurt, Germany's main airport at different times and gates. Our next challenge was taking the train to Salzburg, Austria. We wanted to take the regional trains rather than the ICE highspeed train because the cost was significantly lower...so that made it a bit more interesting. Our itinerary showed us that we had to take 6 different trains to get to Salzburg and that we would not reach the train station there until about 11:00 or 12:00 that night (We were leaving at about 2:30 in the afternoon.) Great! We thought...this will be no problem. We just have to read the signs and we'll find our way. We did find our way (by 2:00 am)...after struggling to read German signs and directions (neither of us know any German except for 'Hallo,' 'Danke Shoen,' 'Bitte,' and 'nein spreche ich Deutsch.'), riding the wrong train in the opposite direction for over an hour, meeting a couple very kind and helpful German people, creating a new itinerary, purchasing another ticket from Munich to Salzburg, stumbling from train to train, and asking a lot of questions. Once we could finally drop our bags at the hotel, we felt like we had made quite the accomplishment...and just may have figured out the train system.