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"Train?!? What Train?"
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From The Journals of Karl Eckler: 29th July 2004

All right, so it happened like this: I was going along, minding my own business all packed up and ready to leave the train to Berlin at hauptbanhof Zool. The problem begins with my clunky ex-army backpack catching on the luggage rack. The problem continues with the fat lady and disobeying child that stand on the stairway from the top level of the double-decker train.

So there I am, watching the last person leave the train, and this woman grows suddenly indecisive about whether she's leaving or rebuking the kid, and I say "Enshuldigung Sie" in a panicky, "the doors are closing dammit" kind of way and she backs out of my way to let me pass.

After spending five crucial seconds apologizing.

It was those five seconds, I figure that made the difference between me leaving through the door, and making it too to door just as it closed. I of course did the second. At this point I wasn't panicking, just annoyed with my stupidity for not assembling downstairs at the stop before. There was a button on the door marked ausgehen, so assuming that it would actually open the door, I pressed it.

It did nothing, so I pressed it again, and the door stolidly remained shut. So, I pressed the identicle buttons to the side of the door, and they did nothing. It was at this point that I realiyed that while they had friendly little LED lights, they were not lit. Now, whenever a button has friendly little LED lights in the states, it means that the button only works when the friendly little lights are on.

Damn unfriendly, those buttons.

It was at this point that I started to panic. I remember jabbign every button on, around or near the door. There was some pounding and swearing too, I think, but I really wasn't paying much attention. Suffice it to say, that was when the train started to move, and worst of all, none of my travel group was looking at the train. Nobody would know where I had gone, when they did the head count on the tour bus and found themselves one short. By that time, my location would be suitably questionable to create no end of speculation and trouble.

I had visions of the program being out the money it took to charter a tour bus for two hours, or visions of me not being able to find the rest of the group at all. Which would mean no hotel, no place to stay, and no way to get in touch with anyone at all. This, I would say is the point when panic firmly started to set in, and I had absolutly no idea where my towel was.

What brought me out of it was not Douglas Adams's timeless words of advice, but a laughing (at me, not with me) bicyclist who kept saying "Fredrichstrasse" between giggles. Oh! Right, this is Berlin. Big city, lots of train lines, *multiple trainstations.* Sure enough, seven minutes later, the train pulls into the Fredrichstrasse Hauptbahnhof. This leaves me with 23 minutes in which to make it back to the previous station, and keep myself found.

The problem was that at the time, I couldn't remember what the last station was called. I was hoping that a train would come along in a few minutes going the other way, but no such luck. Fortunatly, the Schnell-bahn lines were not too far away, so I checked them to see if any would return me to the last intercity rail station. Of course, there was nothing so much like a system map, just a timetable that did me a whole lot of no good, and I had wasted 4 minutes.

19 to go before the train left, and so I worked my way down the transportation options. First, the starway up had a corrosponding stairway down, marked with an "U" rather than an "S." Assuming that this was the Underground-Bahn station, I ran from the S-Bahn to the U-Bahn wishing that I was James Bond and failing.

The U-Bahn was about as much help as the S-bahn, as I should have figured from the similarity in names. So three minutes down the tubes. What to do now? Well, obviously the first step was that I needed the name of the previous station. Once I had that, other steps may be able to be worked out.

So, up the stairs (damn, this backpack is getting heavy) and into the Reiseburo (Travel Agency), but its packed. Next stop, the DB office, which also was packed, but there was a big German rail map on the wall, showing Fredrichstrasse and about seven other Bahnhofs in Berlin. I tried to find the one in strait line with Lübeck, but failed. Then I remembered that I was pretty sure that the hauptbahnhof I needed to go to started with a "Z," and of the many trainstations in Berlin only one fit the bill: Hauptbahnhof Zool (that's short for Zoological Park, I found out later).

Okay, great now I know where to go, how do I get there? I look at my watch. Nine minutes. Even if I could find out which S-Bahn or U-Bahn or Ray-Ban to take, it would be more than that before the train would come. Busses are the same thing only worse, so I sucked up my pride, found my wallet and followed the "Taxi Stand" signs.

Outside, I find that the signs are really more like guidelines. There were in fact no Taxies anywhere in sight of the exit. Walking along with the flow of traffic seemed like the best thing to do under the circumstances, and before I had made half a block, I look back to see a Mercedes with an unlit yellow taxi sign on the top.

Already somewhat afraid of unlighted things, I wasn't sure if that meant the cab was free or not on duty. I figured that It would do any harm to scream out "Taxi" and hope my translation was correct, so I did. Turned out to work beautifully, the driver pulls a dead stop in the middle of traffic, and I throw myself in after my heavy ALICE pack. I have no Idea how to say "Please take me to the y`Zoological Garden Trainstation please" in German, so I wing it with "Haupbahnhof Zool, bitte." The cab driver repeats it, or something really close, and I enthusiastically say "Ja!" Looking at my watch, I have five minutes.

I very quickly am driven by the Reichstag, the Furnsehturm, and the victory columm. While these flash by on the outside, I'm thinking: "Did I get the right station? Did I pronounce it right? Is he taking me to the right place? Will I be killed, eaten and used for sadistic cultish practices?" and then we get to the Station, but I've been out of time for four minutes.

I hand the driver the twelve Euros I owe him and tip him, which I almost never do, but this was above and beyond the call and I'm grateful. Hoisting my pack, I go looking for a tourbus, hoping to recognise someone, because I wasn't really listening when they told us the name of the tour company. That's when I see Sally Winkle walk across the crosswalk.

I now know how a shipwrecked sailor feels like when he sees a mast on the horizon. I called out and started running like I'd been eating raw fish and having conversations with a volleyball for the last five years. It turned out that they had been waiting for me, but only for about ten minutes, and our tour continued without any further excitement.

At least until I tried to use one of Berlin's new ultra-modern public toilets, but that's a story for next time.

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