Who’s Going to Carry The Boats (In Dresden, at 4 am on a Tuesday in February)?*

Sometimes you do everything right and still face an unplanned challenge. For example, you might provide regular and proper maintenance for your car but still suffer a flat tire on the way to your cousin’s barbeque.

In my case, I ticked all the boxes to make it to the Dresden Hbf this morning. The day prior I made sure the following: rental tidy, garbage and recycling sorted, laundry done and folded, medicine and toiletries at the ready to be used and quickly packed, luggage organized and ready, keys, phone, wallet all set, and taxi reserved and confirmed.

The taxi cancelled. That is, the app cancelled the confirmed reservation. I was disallowed from ordering another one. I downloaded another taxi app that populated online for Dresden. Same thing. Tried Uber. Same. Another app. Same. I checked my watch again 425. Train departs at 515. Pulled up Google Maps to look at timeframe for walking to nearest tram. 26 mins. I can do this. I drop my giant rolling suitcase to the floor from the couch. Klang. Duffle bag on top. Hiking backpack on my back, quick. Find the purse, find the keys, make sure passport, wallet, all accounted for. Check, check, check again. Shake blankets on bed. Anything? Power cords packed. Check, checked, all checked.

I hadn’t really noticed the obstacles before. I had to get all these bags on the elevator, down four, across a long hallway, down a flight of stairs. Just one of my bags weighs approximately 75 lbs. That’s on me. I get it down, all of them down, and now I’m out the door, my overcoat tucked between my body and my backpack strap at the hip. The xold morning air on the dark street hits my face. “Good,” I thought, “At least it’s not very cold.” I struggle with the map and street names and I start bumping the rolling suitcase alongside me, the blue duffel strapped clumsily on top (this is not a matching set). I figure out the map, I think. My walk turns into a jog. Okay, now the map is tracking my direction of travel. I’m going to jog to…Mitte? Is that a station name? Yes, that’s a station, I think. I’m just going.

As soon as I round a corner to the left, where the street sharply curves, I run into a man about 65 years old. He’s carrying a bucket of soapy water and some towels are tucked into his utility belt. He’s skinny and balding, and we startle each other. Both we both smile when I say, “Entschuldigen Sie! Wissen Sie wo ich ein Taxi finden kann?!” As soon as I ask the question I realize how absurd it is, normally absurd, as in, asking a stupid question absurd. He surmises my predicament quickly and tries to help with encouraging words, but, no, there are no magic taxis. He’s not going to use the soapy water and towel to wash the window of the building nearest us to create a portal to the train station. He does, however, verify the street name I’m on and the street names I’m looking for. I’m grateful for that, and I tell him as I look backwards while jogging away towards the train station.

The bags are “schwer” and awkward and I’m barely keeping the rolling one rolling and the one on top of the rolling one on top. It keeps sliding off the side. The bumpy cobblestones worry me for the wheels of the rolling one (how long will they last under these conditions?). I think about moving my whole one-woman unplanned nomadic trek to the street where the surface is smoother. But before I can make that decision it begins to rain.

At this time, I have to laugh. I’m dragging my possessions across cobblestones, making an offensive amount of noise outside the homes of Dresdners getting their final hours of sleep, I’m trying to keep my jogging steady, but the duffel keeps slipping, and now it starts to rain. As an acquaintance recently wrote me about another luggage experience, “oh my, you’ve really got to appreciate the irony there ;)”.

I made it, clumsily and lightly perspiring, damp from rain, to the tram. On the ride to the train station I sat thinking about the trek. It took 24 mins but felt like more. I think that having all of the baggage really amped up the experience. By the time I got to the Hbf, it was 505. I still had 10 minutes before depature. As a final FU, out of all the station’s platforms, only mine were accessed via stairs. There was probably an elevator somewhere, but a glance around at signs didn’t reveal it. One set of 10 steps, the heaviest bag on my right arm. The second set of 10 steps, the heavist bag lugged by my left arm.

Sometimes the most orderly, well-made plans run afoul of reality. I read somewhere recently that in a branch of the US military (the Marines?), experience of the unplanned is managed by the pragmatic philosophy of “innovate, adapt, and overcome”.