Throughout the week, I learn that adjusting my schedule by 3 entire minutes is about as impossible for me as going a few days without losing something of value. In fact, two weeks since the change, I have made the train I have planned to catch only three times. Remember this incompetence, for it will prove ominous.
After lunch, I come to my Modern German History class at 1:30 PM expecting a wonderful lesson from my professor. To my surprise, I don't find my professor there ready to fill me with daring insights into "historical ewents" and "political wiolence."* Instead, I find Dirk, the program director, sitting at my heavy-accented professor's desk and asking the class when it would be best to schedule a make-up session because our professor has fallen ill.
So 7:15 PM Wednesday after next it is. Remember this illness, for it will prove fateful.
When I arrive at school the next Monday, my German professor tells us that we're going to a courthouse on our Thursday Exkursion (that's "excursion," in the English) and, it being a government office and all, need to bring our passports along for the ride. I know it's getting hard, but keep this little tidbit in your mind as well.
Eventually, Wednesday rolls around, and I have to catch the 6:38 PM train to go back to school after coming home to Grunewald for some dinner. I'm about to leave the house when I see, out of the corner of my eye, my passport, which I need for Thursday. I weigh my options. I can either bring it with me now and leave it in my jacket pocket to ensure I take it with me tomorrow, or I can leave it here and just hope I remember to take it with me tomorrow. I opt for responsibility. After all, if I take it now, I'll definitely have it tomorrow, right?
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| This is how I'll let you know I'm foreshadowing. With a visual pun. |
I shove it in my pocket and bounce. The time is 6:34, and I live 2 minutes from the train station. Also, the train's clock is 2 minutes slower than my phone clock, so I have 6 minutes to get to the platform.
As I mosey on up to the train platform, I realize that, solely because I'd like to catch it, the train has come four goddamn minutes early. I run up the stairs to the platform and sneak onto the train before the doors close, only the second time in 10 days that I've gotten onto the train I meant to. I'm proud of myself. The train begins to pull away. I put my hand in my pocket - and it feels substantially less passport-filled.
I text Simon, a fellow Grunewalder, and ask him to check the train station for me. Meanwhile, I've got to get to class.
Three hours later, after hoping that maybe I hadn't taken the passport at all and had just kinda imagined it, I get home, check the S-Bahn stairs unsuccessfully (I hadn't gotten an answer from Simon), and trudge back home. I check my room. No passport. I begin to get concerned.
Now, let's take a step back and analyze everything that's just happened here, that we might show how much everything that transpired here wasn't just some random actions resulting in a disappeared passport, but rather a perfect storm of sorts conjured specifically by the gods in heaven for, I assume, their shits and giggles. You'll notice some interesting coincidences:
- We'll begin with the fact that the passport got itself lost exactly 15 hours before I need it for class and, even more importantly, roughly 40 hours before the train for which I've already paid leaves for Prague.
- Prague hasn't been in Germany for about 65 years or so.
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| Not really sure why they hopped off of that gravy train. |
- I need my passport for only the second time since coming here.
- The make-up class is, naturally, the day before I need my passport for only the second time since coming here.
- For the past two years, Berliners have had to deal with an unpredictable (read: approximately 228% more predictable than the Metro) S-Bahn, despite it working perfectly for almost a century before then. Every Berliner will inevitably remind you of both of these facts within two seconds of you so much as thinking of a word that has an 'S' in it.
- For the last two weeks, the S-Bahn has decided to peg its departure time to exactly 30 seconds before I arrive, meaning that regardless of whether I'm early or late, the train will be leaving as I get to the platform and I'll have to run to catch it.
- Nothing in my jacket's pockets less valuable than the passport has ever fallen out of them. Hell, I've had this damn cork in here for weeks now and I've been trying to lose that.
- And ultimately, this all comes down to my professor. Were he a generally healthier person, the opportunity to take my passport out of the house on Wednesday night would have never presented itself.
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| Hey, I've been there! |
These people are fools.
Having thus been singled out and conspired against for the entertainment of the divine host, I wrote up a plan for the next day:
- 8:45 AM: Go to my Exkursion and try to sneak in with copies instead of the real deal
- Hop onto the U-Bahn into the middle of the city to check out the Bahn System Lost and Found
- Failing that, call the U.S. Consulate, explain my predicament and go see them, despite it being tucked away in a tiny southwest corner of the city
- Proceed to storm the Consulate (or, as I phrased it on the schedule, "Bring the ruckus, 'cuz P. Wilence ain't nuthing 2 fuck wit"), get a new passport
- Meet Kat to go to the Deutsches Historisches Museum - back in the middle of the city, mind you
- Go back home to the edge of the city in Grunewald and write a report on the museum for two different classes, one of which was already late
- 7:30 PM: Get to a play for class, again in the middle of the city
- Go to Stammtisch in Charlottenburg (close to Grunewald) in order to properly celebrate Sarah's birthday
I, for one, was looking forward to travelling the length of the city three times in 11 hours. I woke up bright and early, took the train to the courthouse, and the security guard denied me like Peter did Jesus. I figured that was for the best, considering I would have two more hours to hunt down my passport. I head down to the Lost and Found, where I have a whole conversation in German about losing my passport. I'm feeling intelligent, until I tell her that I lost it yesterday and she, to paraphrase, says, "We've been open for all of fifteen minutes since you lost it, you fucktard."
Fair enough, I say, before bouncing out the place and heading off towards the Consulate. I try to call them, but my phone's a little busy doing a really cute thing I like to call "sucking at being a phone."
After journeying to the end of Berlin, I get off the U-Bahn and walk towards the Consulate. I get sidetracked by a sign pointing towards a McDonald's 300 meters down the road. I attempt to walk there. I quickly realize I have no concept of meters, become concerned after about three blocks, and turn back around to go see if the Consulate can hook a brotha up. I walk in and talk to the guard who controls the door. He explained my situation to the people upstairs via telephone. He looks up at me, and then ends the conversation.
"Well, you're in luck Mr. Wile."
"Why's that?"
"Someone found your passport. Go upstairs and they'll tell you how to get it."
I'm in shock. I start to head upstairs, but I apparently have to go through security. I do that, head through the Consulate, get stopped because I don't have some paper, sweet talk my way upstairs regardless, and get shown a piece of paper with a name and two phone numbers on it.
I call the first one, which gives me a receptionist at a doctor's office. Once again, pretending I know German, I explain that I'm looking for my passport and a certain Dr. Bach has it. She puts me through, and he tells me to take the bus to come on over and see him. He works in Roseneck, which I pass through every day I miss the train on the bus. I find the practice, go inside the door, and ring the bell. I get buzzed in, explain to the receptionist that I'm the irresponsible American with blatantly bad German, and take a seat in the waiting room.
Dr. Bach gets finished with his patient, and he invites me into his office. We have a lovely conversation involving me speaking shitty German and him speaking imperfect English, and he tells me that his son found it in the Grunewald S-Bahnhof and brought it to him. I thank him immensely, and go about my way.
And by about my way, I mean on a bus headed back towards that McDonald's, where I ordered a Big Tasty Bacon McMenü (that's "meal," in the English). Me and my passport split the fries.
Fair enough, I say, before bouncing out the place and heading off towards the Consulate. I try to call them, but my phone's a little busy doing a really cute thing I like to call "sucking at being a phone."
After journeying to the end of Berlin, I get off the U-Bahn and walk towards the Consulate. I get sidetracked by a sign pointing towards a McDonald's 300 meters down the road. I attempt to walk there. I quickly realize I have no concept of meters, become concerned after about three blocks, and turn back around to go see if the Consulate can hook a brotha up. I walk in and talk to the guard who controls the door. He explained my situation to the people upstairs via telephone. He looks up at me, and then ends the conversation.
"Well, you're in luck Mr. Wile."
"Why's that?"
"Someone found your passport. Go upstairs and they'll tell you how to get it."
I'm in shock. I start to head upstairs, but I apparently have to go through security. I do that, head through the Consulate, get stopped because I don't have some paper, sweet talk my way upstairs regardless, and get shown a piece of paper with a name and two phone numbers on it.
I call the first one, which gives me a receptionist at a doctor's office. Once again, pretending I know German, I explain that I'm looking for my passport and a certain Dr. Bach has it. She puts me through, and he tells me to take the bus to come on over and see him. He works in Roseneck, which I pass through every day I miss the train on the bus. I find the practice, go inside the door, and ring the bell. I get buzzed in, explain to the receptionist that I'm the irresponsible American with blatantly bad German, and take a seat in the waiting room.
Dr. Bach gets finished with his patient, and he invites me into his office. We have a lovely conversation involving me speaking shitty German and him speaking imperfect English, and he tells me that his son found it in the Grunewald S-Bahnhof and brought it to him. I thank him immensely, and go about my way.
And by about my way, I mean on a bus headed back towards that McDonald's, where I ordered a Big Tasty Bacon McMenü (that's "meal," in the English). Me and my passport split the fries.
*When I become a rapper, this is going to be my stage name, stylized as "Political Wilence."
Also, that took every fiber of my being not to type "wile-ized as 'Political Wilence.'" You're welcome.
This was a great post and a perfect one to read while in my dark room trying not to sleep and do hw instead. some very DW things i pickyed up and loled at:
ReplyDelete"but my phone's a little busy doing a really cute thing I like to call "sucking at being a phone.""
and...
"I get sidetracked by a sign pointing towards a McDonald's 300 meters down the road."
I had a big and tasty once too at McD here. fun stuff. i was having a rough day after pulling an all nighter and i needed some mcd. i took it to-go and ate in the park while forgetting that i was wearing my American hoodie that has "AMERICAN" stitched across the chest. classy :)