Monday, April 18, 2005

Guardian Angels or why Geraldine does not need the Hospitalityclub...

I have to tell you one of the craziest stories ever!
This weekend I was in Frankfurt to accompany Theresa to the airport where she was going to pick up her boyfriend. Then, as Silvia and Bumma couldnt make it to meet me there, I decided to visit Silvia in Heidelberg where she just moved to, as it isn't far away from Frankfurt.
Well, I passed a nice day there and decided to leave sunday with the train (instead of hitchhiking which I usually do), to be able to read Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, which was assigned to us until MOnday.
Well, I couldn't leave, however, without having a haircut at the hairdressers where I had a cut two years ago when I was so mad at Jerome with whom I visited Heidelberg back then.
The hairdresser was a very bad surprise though, Silvia and I were slightly terrified by his obvious ignorance of the simpliest techniques and I managed to leave him before he could to serious harm tto my beuatiful hair. ;-)
That's how the misery started.
Instead of arriving at 7 o'clock pm, which would have been a decent time for situating myself in Berlin and meeting up with L.A. (who this guy is you can read in a post somewhere below) but now, because of this terrible haricut on which i spent 20 euros, I was to arrive in Berlin at 10 o;clock. Well then, L.A. was fine with that and I soon was caught up in the book I read.
In Kassel, however, which is a fuckin small city in Germany but still has TWO trainstations, one of which LOOKS like a main station whereas in reality the smaller one is the main one. Being involved in my book and the music I was listening to, I got off at the bigger station, assuming it to be the main one. I found the next platform where my train was due, waited for it and when it didn't arrive I inquired at the information spot and found out that I was at the wrong station.
Man, that really pissed me off! I tried to get some money from my account which, for some reason, was not possible (I guess I spent too much money in Heidelberg :-/) thus I even couldn't take a taxi to the next gas station in order to hitch hike...
L.A calmed me down and said he would be going out this night anyways so we even could have a midnight dinner together. Somewhat calmed down by that prospect I decided to wait those 2 hours and take a proper connection to Berlin.
So I did! And I believed myself to be in the right train, until, at 8 pm, I realized that the station which would have been my next destination, did not appear~!
I, apparently near to a nervous breakdown facing all this confusion, found out after talking to quite a few people, that I was on the right track but in the opposite direction! I was near Dortmund by then!!!!!
Can you imagine my surprise, shock and distress I found myself in, realizing how stupid I was??? It had been, again, this fucking main trainstation in Kassel, which I had missed in order to change trains.
Jesus! But I got acquainted with a very intersting guy with such a fucked up life that I thought it worth to be written down and fur sure, showed me how lucky i was despite all that stress I encountered.
]In Hagen, where I eventually wound up, the lady of the DB told me I should try to get on the night train to Berlin. However, the controlleur there just didn't let me in without a ticket, and as I had NO money at all left with me and no possiblity to get some, I found myself REALLY fucked up in that moment. I really detest german bureaucracy sometimes. Man, with some common sense people could let you in a train late at night...
Before I offend all germans, however, I will come to the more astonishing and crazy part of the story....
As I went back to the main building a woman called after me. It was the woman, who had been standing beside me, when I explained my situation to the controlleurs...She said: I cannot pay you the ticket to Berlin, but would it help you, if I give you 50 Euros, so you can take a Hotel and go to a bank tomorrow??? I, dissolved in tears already, refused, but she insisted and gave me the money in a hurry, as she had to catch her train.
This broke my self-command entirely, now I was crying even more, for which reason ever it was. As I walked down the building, a hand touched me gently from behind, and a woman said:"oh, my, what is wrong" and gave me a hug to console me. As you know, this kind of treatment often leads to even more tears and I explained her my situation, sobbing and laughing at the same time (the Kilcher-woman are known for that kind of mixture!). She obviously had determined herself within a few seconds to help me, and after examining some options of what I could do (ranging from taking an ICE to hitchhiking) she insisted on taking me to her mothers house, who she was visiting that night and to take a train the next morning.
That's how I wound up in her mothers house, getting at last something to eat, went to bed earlier than ever and slept very well.
The both woman, Heike-Angel, and her mother, were real "Mothers" in that sense that they would do everything to make me happy and were happy that they could make me happy. :-))
The next morning Heike gave me antoher 55 Euros so I could buy the f****expensive ticket to Berlin, insisted on me not feeling obliged to return it nor the favour and then showed me, half joking half earnest, a photo from one of her 4 sons. "You know, she said, he just broke up with his girlfriend and I have always thought that a girl like you, so natural and nice, would be better for him..." lol...
then she was quick to assure, that it was just a joke and that i should not feel obliged to even write to her, as she shares my opinion on the issue of meeting people: the moment is what is important, not the superficial contact that often follows encounters like that.
But yet, if I should happen to be near Ludwigsburg I should not hesitat to stay at their house, with how many friends ever I would bring with me :)

Look, the point is, I feel incredibly blessed to having met two so gracious guardian-angels and I just want to let all of you know, that there are many Germans who are so much unlike the rather negative picture often drawn upon them....

I thank god for the occasion to acknowledge that and yeah, now I am back to Berlin... lucky me.... I still can;'t believe it really and am totally puzzled...
La vita es dolce~!

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