travel happens. as much as we try to plan our time -how we are going to get from one place to the next, when we are going to leave, when we will arrive, where we will stay, etc. -it usually ends up happening quite differently than we expected. take today for instance.

we had planned to go to rothenburg and we knew it would be a bit more complicated than normal because it's a smaller town and a bit out of the way. so last night we looked up the train schedule, wrote down which connections we'd need with times and platform numbers, etc. and were all set. or so we thought. according to the schedule, we'd leave at 10:55am and get to rothenburg about 1:30pm. no problem, right?

after breakfast at our hostel (they had peanut butter and bananas -i was a happy happy camper!!), we set out to catch the 10:55 train to nurnburg. all well so far, we arrived in nurnburg and found our connecting train to ansbach right across at the next platform. we both commented on how much we like traveling by train -especially in germany where the system works like clockwork. maybe this is where we jinxed ourselves?

i don't know exactly how it happened, but we got off at the wrong stop -a random little town just minutes from where we should have gotten off. after looking at train schedule postings and getting very confused, we realized our mistake and sat down (outside in the cold because little towns apparently don't keep their stations open on thursday afternoons) to wait for the next train. the train came along after a bit, and we got up ready to get on, only to be confused by the signs in the window which looked like it was going right back to where we came from, which we definitely didn't want. we paused for like 2 seconds (literally) to think this over, and as soon as we realized we did indeed want this train, the doors were closing and there was no getting on.

so we sat back down, determining to get on the next train no matter what. a while later, the train pulled in and we were inside before your mom could go to college. (which is not very long). we rode along until we came to ansbach, which is where we'd wanted to be in the first place. at ansbach, we looked up our next stop in a computer, found the time and platform, and were there in mere seconds only to realize the train was just leaving and it didn't seem to be the train we wanted. so we went inside to wait for the next train which was scheduled for an hour later.

after an hour, we went to wait at the platform where we met a guy who asked if we needed help, and informed us that there were "no trains" to rothenburg. oh. he said we'd have to take a bus, so we went out to the bus station to check things out. we found a stop for rothenburg, attempted to read the time table, and sat down (outside in the freezing cold) to wait for the 3:45 bus. you should know that doing sudoku with mittens on is hard work. 3:45 rolled around, there was no bus. 3:50 came, and still no bus. when it was 3:55, we decided we'd read the schedule wrong and went inside to ask someone. at information, i was again told there were indeed "no trains" to rothenburg. right. so we found some seats inside the station where it was semi-warmer, sat down to wait for the next train, and continued our sudoku fest.

at 4:40, we were standing out at the bus stop, hoping hoping hoping that a bus would show up as we were supposed to meet people in rothenburg at 6pm. lo and behold -a bus rolled up at 4:50 and we were overjoyed to see "rothenburg" across the front. 70 minutes later we were craning our heads out the windows of the bus and squinting to read signs in the dark so we could figure out where we are. after much frustration at lack of lights, we found out we were in rothenburg and decided to get off at the next stop. it was 6:05 when the bus pulled up at the rothenburg station (and we saw a train just leaving for the station we took the bus from...what??!) we hurried outside and looked around for james, who was supposed to meet us at 6pm. after a few minutes we found him and he was super nice about us being late, and very understanding about the trains. it turned out he works in ansbach where we just spent the last 3 hours of our lives, and had to drive out of his way to pick us up in rothenburg. isn't it ironic? (a little too ironic, i really do think).

so what was going to be a 2 hour morning/early afternoon train ride and then day spent in rothenburg turned out to be 2 hours on the train, 3 hours waiting at train stations, and another hour on the bus. good times.

like i said, travel happens. you scheme and plan, but half the time all you can do is cross your fingers and hope you get there within the month. i'm not good at that -i like to know. but i also like to travel -and this is what traveling is -it just happens.