Trains, Mistaken Identities, and Family
I am fortunate enough to have loving family still in Germany. I went to visit my mom's mom's sister (my great-aunt) and my uncle for the weekend near Stuttgart, Germany.
Of course I was a little nervous to go on my own. The nearly 5 hour train ride to visit relatives that I haven't seen since I was 10 was a little nerve racking. But lets be honest, thinking about being late to class makes me anxious. Sitting on the train, a million horrible scenarios went through my head. What if I can't find them? What if they don't recognize me? I did send them a recent photo of me, so hopefully that helps. What if I walk right past them and I miss them? And then I looked down at my feet and I saw a dog's nose. I giggled a little when the dog, who was laying underneath the seat in front of me looked up. I must've been on the train for at least 2 hours and just now realized that dogs are allowed to travel around Europe as much as their owners. Cool, right?
And then my worst nightmare happened. The train was not able to stop directly in Stuttgart because they were doing repairs on the platform where my train was supposed to arrive. I made quick friends with the dog owner in front of me who was travelling in the same direction. Asked him for directions and we walked together to the next platform in Esslingen, Deutschland. Where the heck is Esslingen? Regardless. I made it onto the U-Bahn or S-Bahn (who knows? I just followed everyone) and arrived at the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof about 15 minutes later than expected.
I walked up to the platform where I thought my train would have arrived and then I a voice similar to my Oma's calls out "Marianne?" Not my name. But my mother's. I was happy to see that it was my great-aunt who was messing up my name. My Tante Irene gave me a huge hug and her eyes filled up with tears. She said something to the extent of "I wasn't sure if we were ever going to see each other again." Then she asked if I recognized her (truthfully, I didn't fully remember how she looked -- but I recognized my uncle easily).
They told me about all the hassle the went through to find me, asking information a few times, double checking and triple checking the time tables.
We were just so happy to be together again. She wrapped her arm around me, my uncle carried my bag and we walked to their car.
Family is a wonderful thing. I felt like I was at home visiting my own Oma when I was with them.
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