How I Lost and Found My Adaptor

Let me tell you a story. Okay, it isn't much of a story, in the sense that there aren't many obstacles, but it is about the choices I make when I'm travelling, and there is this sense of three acts, so... well, okay, it is a story.

First class seats in German trains have an electrical outlet, so you can plug your notebook in, or your hair dryer, or, like I did, perhaps even your handphone charger.

The plug is between the seats, way below everything else, so it's hidden away. And then I got into conversation with some Americans about Newcastle and Owen's injury. That's my explaination anyway about why I left it on the train.

Yup, left my phone charger on the train. And I don't think they make the model any more, so you could say it's practically one of a kind. As happy as I was that I would be saving money on phone calls, I really should get it back.

But what could I do? I decided to just poke my head around the office door in the Railway Travel Information Centre.

I'm not confident in my German. I know this because if I have to ask anything complicated, I first check if they can speak English or not. Most of the time, the response is "Not very well, explain it to me in German". Once, it was "Your German is good, what, say it in German lah!" (translated to Malaysian English, of course).

The other problem is that they tend to answer in rapid-fire German. The trick I have (which works most of the time) is to identify the two or three words I understand and then work out what is being said from there. The problem with that is that one word can sometimes make all the difference.

By the time I had finally worked out where the lost and found department was (incidentally, in DB railway stations, they're always also the left luggage office), I had asked three people and walked the length of the station twice. When I got to the last person ("My English not so good, say in German please"), I had more or less got the words down pat, based on which phrases left people puzzled and which they nodded and smiled at.

They told me because the train went on ahead to Munich, they didn't clean up the train in Leipzig, and that the only way I could get it is if I went to the Munich train station. They were kind enough to write my name and seat number down to pass it along, though, and they were sympathetic of my plight (being crap at German).

The problem is, I wasn't due in Munich until the week after, so I would be without a telephone until then. Not a disaster, but still a pain.

So, I was still thinking about that when I boarded the train to go to Cologne, my next stop. I also wanted to drop by Frankfurt to buy tickets for the Billy Joel concert (different story). Frankfurt to Cologne is only an hour, no problem.

However, when we pulled into Frankfurt station, I was still very groggy from the sleep (it was 5.30 am), and I thought about things for awhile.

The ticket office wasn't going to open for another four hours at least, maybe five, so I'd have to hang around in a cold railway station until then.

But, the train I was on was going on to Munich (all trains go to Munich or Berlin, I gather). Sure, it was another four hours, but my German Railpass would mean it would be a free roundtrip, and I might be able to get my adaptor back.

So I settled back to sleep and stayed on the train. Of course, when we got to Munich, it wasn't over yet.

I couldn't find the lost and found office ('Findburo' if you're interested), so I poked my head into the Euraide office. Euraide is an organisation set up to help people with Eurail tickets sort out tickets, reservations, etc. I used them as an interactive map of the station. When I told them I had lost something on the train, the guy basically laughed and wished me good luck. Apparently there's not much found at the Lost and Found.

Nevertheless, I'd gotten this far already, might as well go all the way. The man in charge of the lost and found office was (a) Clearly a life-long employee of the DB railways, with not much left on his tenure; (b) Proud of his job and the responsibilities that came on with it; (c) Not likely to speak the languages of any country that he fought against in the war (The Great War, not the other one).

By this time, I had the words more or less pat, but I still needed to point to the phone ("See? Thingy that plugs into there"), make funny rectangular shapes with my hands ("Like this, not so small, not so big") and a lot of smiling and nodding at what seemed the appropriate times ("What kind of idiot leaves his adaptor behind on a train?" Smile. Nod.).

Finally, with some more pointing and nodding, he finally produced my adaptor. In one piece. I thanked him gratefully and heartily. I think he was so surprised by my reaction, that he himslef broke into a huge smile, grasped my hand with both of his and seemed to thank me in return for making his week.

A time to make friends indeed.

Labels: germany, world cup