Sliding Into Germany, Zero Fanfare

So, we woke up in Zurich and had “free” breakfast in the hotel lounge. This is one of our favorite travel hacks because it saves us time and money to eat meals, snacks, and even have drinks in the lounges you gain access to with loyalty status. We can save our money for the bigger things we want to do.

Then, we hailed an uber to cruise to the train station. Our driver was hilarious- he said he was driving Scottish people to the train station all morning because there was going to be a big soccer game later in the day in Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein!!?!?! what?!?!? Just a short train ride away to score another country??? This gave me ideas. Anyway, the driver was assuming we would also be Scottish and was quite surprised to hear our American accents.

The train station was pretty big but also super easy to figure out. I asked at the info booth to confirm we were reading our tickets right - and we were. We hopped on when it arrived and found our seats. We had a bit of a challenge with all the luggage - especially the large suitcase- because the overhead racks weren’t that big and there was otherwise nowhere for it to go. Another guy and Jason tag-teamed to ram the suitcase up there but it half way hung out, which made us nervous the entire trip that it would flop out and crush someone’s face. 

Aside from that, the trip up was great. Beautiful scenery. Lots of lush green farmland and vineyards. And somewhere in all that we crossed into Germany with zero fanfare or anyway of knowing it at all. It was more of a, “well, I guess we’re in there by now.” Too weird!

When we got to the train station in Freiburg, I pulled out my phone because I’d taken some screenshots of google maps knowing my phone wouldn’t be working yet/ no WiFi. But, turns out I didn’t need that because I looked around and literally could see the Marriott Courtyard from the train tracks! HA! 

It would have been fastest to walk through the station but something had happened and the entire thing was closed and surrounded by police. I, of course, didn’t know that there weren’t always police standing around the outside of the train station so I tried to walk in anyway when two of them said to me at the same time, “ENGOIEGNOIENGOIEGNOEIG” which is German for something likely resembling, “You can’t go in there.” Well, excuse me.

So, we walked around and all of 2 blocks later, there we were! As we entered, we saw Corie and Nick- like showing up at summer camp and seeing all your friends. We got checked in and up into the room with no trouble at all. 

We decided to just have a light bite at the bar rather than going out since we were still shaking jet lag and I had an early start the next morning. Well, as we sat there, literally my entire team strolled in over the evening and each time we’d stop to meet/chat/catch up. Before you knew it, it was like 9 pm and we hadn’t eaten yet. Little did I know this would become the theme of the trip!

We finally had some dinner and headed up so I could get ready for a 7am meet in the lobby start to what would be a very long day of meetings and team dinners. Whew! Look out Germany- we have arrived!!