In the past five months (wow, has it already been five months?!) of traveling, I have missed a bus two times. The first was in Cambridge, England at the beginning of my trip and the second was this morning in Aachen, Germany (Here forth to be referred to as Faachen Aachen).
Missing a bus is one of the top 10 worst feelings in the world, especially if you’re traveling with an air-tight schedule like myself. Missing the bus this morning means I also miss my connection this afternoon and therefore must stay in the tiny town of Faachen Aachen again tonight instead of the exciting and exuberant city of Berlin.
I was in Aachen to begin with because my brother, who joined me for a week in my travels, wanted to see the hand of Charlemagne in the Aachen Cathedral.
Yes, I mean the ACTUAL hand of Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, Uniter of Europe in the Middle Ages. Although it’s not as big as it’s giant, gold incasing would suggest.
As my brother explained (he studied Medieval History at university), Aachen was Charlemagne’s favorite imperial residence and it was there that he died of pleurisy and was buried in Aachen Cathedral. I STILL don’t understand who decided to separate his hand from the rest of his body and display it in a glass case but that’s where it is.
It took us about an hour to view the hand and we spent the rest of the day wandering through Aachen Cathedral, which is one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe. Consecrated in 805 A.D., it holds an impressive historical legacy as 31 German kings and queens were coronated there.
All and all, I was a fan of Aachen. It was only after my brother left that this quaint, little German town began to show its true colors.
In the hours following my bus’s departure (sans me) I have revisited over and over every factor that led me to miss my bus.
Here I present my case study and you can decide for yourself if I deserved my fate of bus abandonment or if the universe itself is working against me.
Factors That Led Me To Miss My Bus on November 5th, 2014 in Aachen Germany (henceforth to be referred to as “Faachen Aachen”):
- I Overslept: By 30 minutes. Not an extraordinary amount of time. Had everything else gone smoothly I would have made due. But, alas, everything else did not go smoothly. Begining with:
- Forgetting My Key: I made it down to the first floor when I realized I’d left my key (which I needed to check out) in the room. Not huge deal if it had not been for:
- The Janitor Who I Think Was Deliberately Sent to Make Me Miss My Bus: I got in the elevator to go back up to the 5th floor when at the last minute a man dressed in all blue holding tools jumped into the elevator and pushed EVERY SINGLE BUTTON LIKE A FAACHEN SIX YEAR OLD KID!!!!!!! At my cry of discontent, he looked surprised, said “sorry” and then jumped out at the next floor. After a moment of stunned confusion, I got out of the elevator as well, determining to take the other one up. But then, as soon as it arrived the fake janitor man returned to join me in the OTHER elevator. He started pushing buttons again and I literally threw my body between him and the buttons and screamed “NO!!” like he was a misbehaving dog. I don’t even feel bad about it. I do feel bad about:
- Loosing My Key: I FINALLY made it up to the fifth floor and returned to my room, expecting to find my key sitting on my bed. It was not sitting on my bed. Nor was it under my bed nor in my coat pocket nor in the trash nor under my roommate. I threw open my suitcase in the hall to look through all my clothes and was joined by the fake janitor again. He stood over me laughing and saying things in German. It was at this point that I decided he was an actual demon sent to torment me.
- The Receptionist Who’s “Hehe Not Frem Aachen”: I never found my key and it turned out that I didn’t really need it. What I did need was some clear directions about how to get to my bus stop. I asked the girl working reception where the Aachen BFW train station was and she just giggled and informed me she “wesn’t frem Aachen” and I was like “I don’t care where you’re from, you work at a hotel you should know how to get to key points in the city.” (I didn’t say that. Somehow I hadn’t lost all social graces by that point). After informing her I was in a hurry to catch my bus she said it was a 20-minute walk, which turned out to be a complete and utter fabrication from the alternate reality inside her brain but for some reason, I believed her and started walking… After all, I still had half an hour to get there…
And finally…
6. The Walk That Was Way More Than 20 Minutes: This was the final factor that caused me to miss my bus. Never in my life have I endured a more miserable walk than this. Because I think it will take too long to describe my varying vexations, I have illustrated the scene below.
My bus left at 9:30am and I didn’t even find the bus stop until after 10:00. Around 9:45 I stopped and cried into a fern hedge because I knew all hope was lost… which was especially humiliating thanks to the college campus that surrounds the area. Nothing better than hordes of German students unsympathetically observing you as you cry into a plant. Also I really was holding a dying rose the whole time. A different janitor (not spawned by the devil) at my hotel gave it to me the first day I was there and I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. It turned out to be a perfect expression of my soul at the moment.
So now I’m at a little café in Faachen Aachen drinking hot chocolate and trying to figure out some positives in this whole situation. All that I can think of is that “Faachen Aachen” is a hilarious pun and I never would have thought of it if I hadn’t missed my bus. But then I think it’s only funny right now because I’m a little delirious with all the adrenaline my body is currently trying to process.
Well at least something makes me laugh…
Faachen Aachen.
Have you ever missed an important connection? Console me with your own story in the comment section!
Travel Like Bird 
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