Stranded in Vienna?

This is the story of how I got left behind on our Austria trip! To start off with, we woke up on a wonderful Sunday morning (October 4th to give you a timeline), ate breakfast, checked out of our hostel, and made our way to the Vienna Hauptbahnhof. Our train was scheduled to leave about 20 minutes after we arrived, so we had a few minutes to walk around and find food. Basically, I was at our train ten minutes before anyone else was, our train ended up not being delayed anymore, and I couldn't find my group, so I didn't get on the train because I didn't have my own ticket. I watched the train speed out of the station away from me, and I figured that since I hadn't seen anyone get on the train and I hadn't seen anyone actually on the train (I looked inside!) that everyone else must still be at the station. Turned out I was wrong.

The first thing I did was get out my laptop (which I thankfully had with me) and write down Tim's cell phone number. I found a working pay phone after a couple out of order ones, and was able to all Tim. Then I continued on to run up four flights of stairs, talk to the ticket booker, run back down the stairs and use up the rest of my change to call Tim again, then run back up and talk with the ticket booker again. It was difficult because I didn't even have my ticket with me! All I had was our itinerary with the information on which train my group was currently on. Until the very end, the lady was insistent that I would simply have to buy another ticket to get back to Heidelberg. Then she went and talked with her boss, came back, and told me a different plan! She printed out another ticket itenerary for me, and told me to find the conductor for each train I had to board and tell them my situation. Usually what would happen is that they would phone ahead to the other conductor and make sure that my group really had my ticket, and that everything was valid and all that.

So that's what I did! I ran to catch my first train (which I had five minutes to get to) and found the first conductor. It went off without a hitch. And actually, in my hour and twenty minute stop in Salzburg, I did some sightseeing! I visited Mirabell Gardens and found many more sights from the Sound of Music movie. The gardens are just beautiful! After my sightseeing, I ran back to the train station, and caught two more trains and a bus and made it home safely. Here are some pictures!




You all better know what that is!


Those are the Sound of Music steps.


I love the gardens!






The Mirabell Gardens are gorgeous. Walking around them I just fell in love! It was totally worth traveling on my own. I actually met some cool people, was able to practice my German a lot, and got home flawlessly from one country to another without even having a train ticket in my possession. I'd say that's an awesome adventure :)