Back to Bebra

You know what gives you the edge when you travel? Being fucking smug. It’s nice to be in the airport terminal and in high volume sotto voce saying, “Thank god we went for that 6km run before we came here!” Sometimes, I really think I run just to be smug.

But let’s hold up a bit. The Uber driver dropped us at the wrong terminal and drove like he was channelling Meatloaf… And he’d do anything for a tip except stay in his fucking lane. “Harrowing” is a comment I’d use if I could be arsed to review him. Anyway, airports are shit I won’t bore you with too much detail… But get this…

You know how I like being smug? Well I was saying to Jono that one of my favourite things is hanging out at the airport before a flight… Taking the time to chill out with a glass of crisp icy wine and watching people and planes. Just soaking in those good holiday vibes. Jono was not convinced by my get to the airport earlier request, but he humoured me. After getting through security and passport control we were free to insert ourselves in what I would imagine to be several options at South Africa’s biggest airport. Imagine our collective surprise when we realised our inflight meal was probably going to present more options.

I don’t know what’s happened at OR Tambs (I’m trying that out), but there’s one place that looks anything like a bar/restaurant, and you can’t buy alcohol there. You have to navigate the grumpy-as-fuck wait staff and eventually ask someone with an alcoholic beverage and a guilty shamed face to guide you to the holy grail. Apparently this “diner” doesn’t serve alcohol because it, and I quote, “Takes business away from our friends across there,” she points. Their “friends” (“Ooo friend!… Airport friend!”) are the fucking Duty Free Shop. And get this… Thirty Eight South African Rand for a can of warm Black Label. How is that Duty Free? I opted for the 350ml bottle of white wine (R47) which I planned to just neck out the bottle like a thirsty thirsty hamster.

We wedged ourselves into the smoking area of the “diner” (judge away they’re disgusting and really really gross… Feel free to send hate mail) and the only friendly waitress (I’m sorry but waitron sounds like a transformer) brought us plastic cups and ice. Not quite what I had in mind for my soaking it all in experience. Nevermind, onwards and upwards.

Highlights from the flight included me being amazing and securing us spacious legroom seats, and also looking like flight wankers with matching neck pillows #couplegoals. Less highlighty was the fact that Jono’s entertainment console didn’t work, and mine was patchy at best. Even less of a highlight was that Jono moved to the spare seat next to me and ended up with one of those “elbow guys”. Elbow guys are like guys who wee standing up on planes. Just tuck your elbows in you savage. To add insult to injury “elbow guy” got the last chicken curry so Jono had to opt for the veg pasta. When I asked him to comment for my diary entry (My travel diary is excellent FYI– I don’t care that you didn’t ask), he said, “It was alright… It was like they were trying to make pizza into pasta where they used pasta as the base and put all the other shit on top.” The other shit was basically a bit of tomato sauce, a few plastic olives, and mozzarella. My chicken “Cape Malay” curry was pretty decent, but it’s best not to tell Jono.

Breakfast was a high-octane romp that began at 4am. Jono didn’t get a bread roll (stale) on his tray… Or maybe he did. In any event somewhere in between ordering a coffee and stirring in the milk he realised it had fled into the vortex. What followed was inevitable. Grumpy and tired, laden with blankets and pillows, and our fucking neck pillows, trying to search for the rogue roll. Jono’s coffee ended the same way as the bread roll. Gone like a scone (we didn’t get scones).

To appease the caffeine-depleted Jono, I did the right thing and gave him the bread roll I wasn’t going to eat.

A long time later Jono flagged down a flight attendant and received a cup of shitty aeroplane coffee. 

Breaking news! Discovered the world’s best-behaved toddler/baby (who can tell?). This kid did not peep and was totally lush (as in “that’s lush” not “he’s a lush”). Although, why do babies complain so much when they travel? If you’re a baby every trip is basically Business Class… And they don’t even pay.

In a fun turn of events when we arrived in Frankfurt we were told it was 257 Euros for a train ticket to Hannover.

Fun fact about Hannover. English people spell it Hanover. This is how I ended up with the Hiltermann/Hilterman caper that still haunts me.

The alternative was 57 Euro for a regional ticket to Hannover taking a cool 6.5 hours and 5 delectable changes. We were so tired that there was a scary moment when we actually considered 257 Euros… Praise baby cheeses (there was no cheese on the plane) that we came to our senses.

By this stage, Jono and I were lank sleep-deprived and I was out to murder those smug travellers with the suitcases that glide elegantly. Jono and I dragged our suitcases around and if I’m honest they behaved like petulant children throwing tantrums and digging their heels in. But, as they say, there’s only one way through it. After our second successful train change, we decided to buy coke and beer (Coca-Cola). Our third train change was where disaster struck… There was a very late platform change and this involved us running and dragging our bags onto a train that was a 50/50.

In Germany, when you don’t speak the language… 50/50 is clean not a vibe. And trust me, I have been building a body of evidence to back this up. More about that later.

This is why we decided to get off at the next stop, and how we ended up in Sontra. 

Sontra sounds like a kiff spot, right? “Sontra…”

“Sontra…”

Cue the tourism video soundtrack…

Sontra makes shitholes look like Monte Carlo. Sontra is what you would call a place where people don’t go. No homies anywhere. Everything is boarded up and filled with the shittest graffiti Jono has ever seen. In the world of reliable sources, I think that Jono is pretty credible. But literally, anyone with eyes wouldn’t argue. Shit graffiti par excellence. The aesthetic is what I’d term hopeless.

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The metaphorical tumbleweed was alarming and helped us paint a future story where lost travellers find our skeletons in a few decades time. Recognisable only because of our matching neck pillows. Stephen King hit me up and I’ll debrief you.

Another crucial element to the horror is that we had no SIM card and zero cellphone connection. We were well and truly up shitcreek with a bag of shit and shit bags.

I made the decision to do a bush wee and another reccie. Across the platform in the tunnel (mmm wee smell) there was a not very visible sign saying “Bebra”.

STOP! Dilemma time. 

“Do we go back to Bebra?”

I went back to the original platform and told Jono about my findings. Thus began the dance of indecision fuelled by over tiredness. Do we drag our increasingly heavy bags down a lot of stairs… Through the tunnel of piss… And up a whole bunch more stairs? While we were deciding a train fucking appeared and we watched as people apparated from nowhere and boarded. We blinked and it was gone. “What just happened?!”

“That’s it, we’re going back to Bebra!” Down the flights of stairs, through the tunnel of piss, up the stairs… Huffing and puffing and dragging. Setting fire to my suitcase was becoming an alarming possibility. And then I remembered my dad’s philosophy of “If you can’t carry it don’t pack it!” I’m with you Terry. If you can’t carry your suitcase to Bebra and back then you’ve overpacked. New rule.

Once we got our heartbeats back to below dangerous Jono saw a pretty ropey faded sign that alerted us to the fact that we were quite possibly on the right train to begin with. Which is the platform we’d just fucked off from. It became possible, through muddy translation that the one train (Platform B) goes back to Bebra and the other (Platform A) gets you to wherever we needed to get to change to the final train to Hannover. It was arriving in about 30 minutes.

So yeah, we had to drag our fucking luggage back to Platform A.

Sorry Bebra, we’re not coming back.

But we’ll always have Sontra…

Next Time… Cycling and Recycling. Jaqui rides a bike for the first time in over 30 years and Jono and Jaqui learn what “donate your recycling” really means.