Blogabroad
by Mary Pinckney Waters

January 9, 2006 - Tips for not traveling like an idiot

"This is all too predictable," I thought, reaching for my cell phone for the third time in 20 minutes. It was Tuesday, Dec. 20, and my mom, brother and grandma were supposed to have arrived in Bamberg hours ago to celebrate the first Waters family Christmas in Europe.

I almost hoped it wasn't foreshadowing for the rest of the visit, but I stopped myself; I knew better than that.

After 18:00 I decided to head to the train station. "They must have lost my cell phone number; there's no way they could have been lost for this long," I reasoned. (My "I knew better than that" mechanism malfunctioned this time.) After waiting an hour at the station, I finally spotted three baggy-eyed Americans emerging from the railways, their faces trying to decide between anger and relief.

"You said riding the trains was simple!" exclaimed my 18-year-old brother as he reached in for a hug. I still stand by that statement. Navigating "Die Bahn" in Germany should be easy for most, especially when they have an instruction guide similar to the one I gave my family (see below).

If you are planning to study abroad -- or pursue any worthy undertaking, for that matter -- I hope it is possible for your family to visit you on your turf and gain a first-hand taste of what you're experiencing. Nobody can gauge your progress better than your family. My family knows me as the four-year-old who had tea parties with our pug, Winston; they know me as the third-grader who typed up a family newsletter every week one summer; and now they know me as the college senior who can speak another language and live in a foreign country.

Since it was my mom's and brother's first visit to Europe, of course we wanted to take advantage of their time here and wander around the continent. I was to plan the trip's destination-transportation itinerary. I'm not sure I was the best candidate for this task; I am by nature an overachiever, combined with a travel freak. I envisioned touring country after country like one of those every - normal - person - hates - you - because - you - have - the - luckiest - job - in - the - world - you - jerk hosts on The Travel Channel. In my head it was flawless: landmark after museum after restaurant after festival, interrupted only by four-minute commercial breaks.

It looked pretty on paper anyway -- three cities in three countries in a week: Lyon, France; Milan, Italy; and Zürich, Switzerland. Jam-packed traveling like this had become the norm in the few months I'd been living abroad. I'd taken several successful expeditions with other backpack-strapped 20-somethings, so it couldn't be that different with my family, could it?

You're laughing at me, right now, aren't you?

Bad news first. Our first train ride was the worst. The original plan was to go to Paris, to which there is a direct night train. We were going to reserve a sleeper car and wake up the next morning to croissants and the Eiffel Tower. But this destination changed to Lyon because my mother read about the terrorist acts in Paris and went into mom-freak-out mode. Funny thing is, there are no direct trains to Lyon from Bamberg, a.k.a. we had to switch trains every few hours through the night.

Tip No. 1 for being smart not being an idiot when taking a trip: PLAN AHEAD.

To add to the fun, one of our early-morning trains wound up arriving 50 minutes late, making us miss our next train, forcing us to wait at the Strasbourg, France, station for almost five hours. When we finally arrived in Lyon, we took a taxi to our hotel, which ironically was right across the street from a train station -- a station that was the next stop on our last train.

Tip No. 2 for not being an idiot when taking a trip: COMMUNICATE. My family made the hotel reservations and I purchased the train tickets, but coordinating our plans would have saved us time and money.

After we had traveled almost 24 hours, I rubbed my eyes as I stepped into the Chateau Perrache hotel, hoping it wasn't a mirage. The luxurious elegance of the interior kept me guessing, though. Thirty minutes later we were seated in an exquisite dining room, surrounded by waiters simultaneously lifting four plate covers.

The train ride to Milan went much more smoothly. We spent the most time in this city, including Christmas Eve and Christmas, on which we feasted on Chinese food, as everything else was closed. Good thing Italian Chinese food is delicious. By far the most striking thing about this city was the grandiose architecture. The Duomo di Milano was the most breathtaking church I've ever seen in my life. "Duomo" means cathedral in Italian, and Milan's duomo is the second-largest Roman Catholic cathedral in the world, famous for its Gothic style.

Click on thumbnail for complete image. (Clicking on the next thumbnail closes the first window.)

Tip No. 3 for not being an idiot when taking a trip: SLOW DOWN. Don't underestimate your inborn devices for recording memories. My Nikon doesn't have the features to capture the above.

The last stop was Zürich, where we stayed in the nicest Best Western I've ever been in. The city is positioned on the Limmat River with white-bluish Alps in its background and charming, albeit expensive, shops along its streets. As with everywhere else we went (and have ever gone), all my brother could notice here were the cars. I remember sifting through my photos from this trip and periodically saying to myself, "What the? Why did I take a picture of a random car?" Oh yeah, because my brother said it was absolutely necessary.

Tip No. 4 for not being an idiot when taking a trip: RESPECT DIFFERENCES. Not everyone gets goose bumps from memorials and museums. I still can't fathom how my little bro found Europe's autos more fascinating than its architecture, but if he's happy with a Europe photo album solely featuring Peugeots and Audis, then let him be happy.

I hope these humble tips help you if you're planning on taking a trip soon. Or if you are a frequent trip-taker, I hope you at least read this and thought, "Yes, those are indeed good ideas for not being an idiot." Below you will find some advice on surviving the German train system:

You can buy train tickets online at www.bahn.de; there is a British flag icon for the English version of the site, and you print out your ticket from the Web site. You can also buy tickets from machines at the train station or from the ticket office there during its hours. Tickets can be purchased with a credit card. The people in the ticket office are generally very friendly and speak English.

If you have a question at any point in Germany, almost every German knows some English and many can speak it very well. I think it is much more polite, though, to ask them in German first if they speak English than to simply approach them in English.

To ask in German if someone speaks English, you say, "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" (The "Sie" is pronounced like "z.") If you do only talk in English, remember tone of voice is very important. If you sound too demanding, you might find mysteriously that none of the Germans you meet speak English.

The ticket office can give you your "Reiseverbindungen," which means "trip connections" and tells you which trains to take at which times from which tracks. The office typically gives you these along with your ticket if you purchase it there; if not, you can ask for the connections for free. You can also have them printed from a machine (look for that British flag icon!), or you can simply look at the station signs. White signs list arriving trains, and yellow signs list departing ones, in order of time.

A quick German lesson for understanding the Reiseverbindungen:

-- "von" means "from" and "nach" means "to." So in this instance, I was traveling from Bamberg to Zürich.

-- "Bahnhof" means "train station" and "Haltestelle" means "stop," so those places listed on the left side are stops where I had to switch trains.

-- "Uhr" means "o'clock;" "ab" means the train is departing and "an" means it is arriving; and "Gleis" means track.

Here I left Bamberg from track 3 at 8:50 and arrived in Nürnberg at 9:24 at track 12. Then I had 17 minutes to get from there to track 15 to leave for Stuttgart at 9:41, and so on. Alles klar?

Make sure you do not lose your train ticket. They are almost always checked by a worker for Die Bahn who walks down the aisles and asks for each passenger's "Fahrschein." Oh, and if you want to prop your feet up in the seats, you better take off your shoes first. Otherwise you are going to get yelled at by either a train official or an old lady. Good luck.

Mary Pinckney Waters welcomes your comments and feedback: marypwaters@yahoo.com