Travel Day: Vienna

The day before I leave Interlaken, I go to the train station and ask a ticket agent to create an itinerary for me that will get me to Vienna as fast as possible, so that I can go out for drinks and dinner with Keri, a friend from Minnesota that will be in Vienna for one more night. Some ticket agents are completely awful human beings and don't like to do this for me, even though it's in their absolute power to be helpful in every way possible. The ticket agents in Interlaken, however, live in the most beautiful place on the planet, and so they must be inherently awesome. She tried several things, before finally giving me the golden itinerary that had me leaving at 7:30 am, changing trains 3 or 4 times, and arriving into Vienna in just under 12 hours.

That night, I went down to the Metro Bar at Balmer's for one last hurrah with Jill, Jessica, Phil, and Neil, an oil-rig worker in Florida. Since it was my last night, Neil ordered me a hot chili vodka shot and bought all my beers, since I was also fresh out of the local currency. The plan was for both of us to wake up early, and he would give me a ride to the train station on his motorcycle (somehow figuring out how to strap my luggage to it).

This is what actually happened.

I woke up at 6:30 am, suitcase in complete disarray, which I had just enough time to pull together to make it downstairs and checkout by 7:00. Neil was not waiting for me in the breakfast area to take me to the train station on the back of his motorcycle. I don't blame him. He had a hot chili vodka shot too.

I rush to the train station, make my first train of the day, a whopping half-hour journey to the next station. With less than 5 minutes to make my next connection, I bust ass to get from one platform to another, and hop on a completely empty train and instantly fall asleep. An Aussie had gotten on the train with me. After a couple minutes, he says, I think we're on the wrong train.

Thinking back to just a few moments ago, I thought, yes, I did hear an announcement of some sort just before I fell asleep. It hadn't occurred to me to listen at the time, let alone distrust the solid gold itinerary I had in my hand, which has never been wrong before. Except this one time. This one time when the platform number changed.

Aussie guy and I run back down the stairs, along the underground passageway, and back up to the platform we just came from, only to see the train to Bern, our first connection of the day, pull away.

Holding my itinerary in my hand felt a lot like holding a losing ticket at the race track. I don't want to throw it away because my gut feeling was so sure my horse would win, and maybe, just maybe, a miracle could happen.

I study the train schedules, trying to find anything that might get me to Zurich on time to meet my train going to Vienna, the most important connection of the day. Nothing. So I get on the next train to Zurich, 20 short minutes after the one I missed, and yet completely useless at this point.

In Zurich, I go immediately to the ticket counter to request a new itinerary. Something completely off the wall, that might put me through a dozen train connections, but still get me to Vienna on time. The woman tells me that the direct route leaving in 3 hours is my only option, and gives me the silent hard stare that let's me know she's not going to be any more helpful than that.

With 3 hours to kill, I pay to take a shower in the train station, so that at least by the time I get to Vienna I won't still smell like chili vodka and beer. Then, I strike out in search of an internet cafe. I think to myself, well, I'm in Zurich, might as well see what's out there and try to let my friend know that I'll be late.

I ask several shop owners to direct me to an establishment that provides a computer, wifi, anything. Either they're all playing dumb, or they have literally never heard of the word "internet" before. Each of them sends me in different directions with a non-commital wave of their hand. At one point, I even go back to the tourist office at the station. The woman gives me a map, draws a big circle, and tells me the closest internet access is a 5-minute walk away. This is a HUGE train station, with many levels of shops and restaurants. I look at her like she has got to be shitting me. She looks back at me like, seriously, I'm not shitting you.

I leave the train station again, following the map, and find no internet cafe in the giant radius she drew on the map. So I stop at the McDonald's I ate breakfast at over an hour ago. McDonald's has free wifi, but you have to have a cellphone in order to be sent a text message with a password to log on. I do not have one of these, but I think, maybe I can find someone at the McDonald's that will share their password with me.

I sit next to the one guy with a computer, and say, "Hey, so uhh, you have internet access there? How do you log on?"

He says, "Do you have a cellphone?"

"No."

And then he gives me the EXACT same look that the ticket agent gave me when I arrived in Zurich. I'm a damsel in distress, and he is completely unmoved. He gives me that, not my problem look, and tells me that he doesn't want to let me try his password, just in case it kicks him offline. As if that would completely ruin everything.

By this point, I am upset. I am ready to cry. In over a month of travels, I have never found a group of people so unwilling to be kind. I'm pretty sure that if the people of Zurich saw a blind man step off a curb and about to be hit by a bus, they'd feel no personal imperative to reach out their arm to stop him. This would be asking too much.

So with another hour and a half until my train, I go back to the train station, utterly deflated. For the first time since arriving in Europe, against every challenge and obstacle, Zurich is the one place that causes me to give up completely.

I find a place to sit. Put on my iPod. And think for an hour and a half about how I will never come back to Zurich again.