The German Experience

Stop me if you've heard this one: "Five Americans and a Canadian get on a train to Germany..."

This past weekend we decided to travel to Cheb, Czech Republic to visit some other English teachers who live there. On Saturday, we took a train from Cheb to Nuremberg, Germany. (I'll get some pictures up of that soon, I promise.) We spent the day enjoying the town, looking at old Nazi historical sites and enjoying butter filled pretzels. An old lady even tried to convert us to a strange, nameless religion. I found that ironic.

We stayed all day and into the evening. We then decided it was time to return to Cheb. We boarded the train and relaxed a bit because we had over an hour to kill in between locations.

Finally we came to a stop in a town called Bayreuth. It was not our final stop so we paid no attention to it. After sitting there for longer than normal, a man came through the train and spoke to us in German.  "Do you speak English?" One of us asked. He did. "This is the final stop," he said. That was not possible because we were still thirty minutes from our transfer train, so we asked him to elaborate. According to the driver (Engineer? Pilot?) the train we were riding had split into two trains and the train we needed to be on was long gone. To make matters worse, there was not going to be another train for nearly two hours, which meant we were going to miss the connection to Cheb, which meant that we were stuck there (there being Germany) for the night.

The girls we were staying with sent a few text messages to some Cheb locals to see if they could help us out. Since it was 9:30 at night, I think none of us really thought we were going to make it back to their flat that night. Thankfully, we were wrong.

As we sat in the train station we had the privilege of interacting with some of the more colorful parts of German society. There was a man who only made peculiar noises and a few other people who looked as if they were there on "business." The German Police were even nice enough to ask us why we were there and to encourage us to avoid taking drug and speed, which is apparently not a drug to them.

There was one of those electronic signs that periodically changes ads to keep us company, so that was comforting. Especially when it projected an ad that read "$#% Happens." I thought that it perfectly summed up our night.

We knew we could make it one more stop, but it looked like that would be it for the night. Someone began to sing songs from "Les Miserables," which was also appropriate.

Then, a text message came through. It was from one of the English club students the girls had contacted. He had arranged for two cars to pick us up at the next stop and take us back to Cheb. The day was saved. No buses needed to be rebooked, no money lost, no tears shed.

The beauty of this is that one of the drivers was the pastor of a Czech church in Cheb. I was reminded of the verses that say "Do not be afraid...for I am with you and no one will harm you, because I have many people in this city." (Acts 18:9-10 paraphrased a bit.) So I thank God that He watches over us,even in our foolishness, and that He has many people here in the Czech Republic that want to share the Good News of His great love with their fellow countrymen.