MAN CHILDREN, and the women who keep them alive: So a cousin of mine had a friend doing graduate studies in Europe, and he wanted to visit. As I also happen to live in Europe, he planned to spend a few days with me. This is exciting because my familys pretty close and I love having company. Unfortunately, my cousin is just 26. A very young 26. As in I think hes been drunk since he landed in Warsaw. Now, leaving aside his completely bizarre route across Europe, which makes me think he failed both logic and geography, hes had some adventures. Particularly since his first night in Amsterdam, when he lost his wallet. He was still with his friend then, so at least he still had access to cash, but he hadnt booked his bus trip from Berlin to Dresden yet. He wired me some money so I could do that. No problem. Id have done it without the money transfer. I was more concerned his arrival was going to interrupt my watching Teen Wolf. Last night he posted a picture on Facebook of himself with several beers, celebrating St. Patricks Day in Amsterdam. My first reaction? Oh God, hes going to miss his flight. But, well, it was only eight something. He had lots of time to get to bed. This morning I received a message at 9:45 a.m. Ugh, I was still sleeping, but my cousins flight was supposed to land at 9:30. I figured it was just him checking in to say hed landed. Not even close. Im going to be a little delayed, it says. Okay, very delayed. Then, later: I dont know how Im getting to Dresden at all. Apparently its difficult to book replacement flights if you dont have a bank card. Or credit card. And all the ID you have is your passport. SO I went on the Deutsche Bahn website. Turns out you cant buy an eticket for another person unless they have a Bahn Card or credit card to use for ID or are a citizen of Belgium, Germany, France, Netherlands, or the Czech Republic. Crap. So I phoned them. You can do it over the phone, but they have to mail the tickets. Well, that wont work. Then I tried the NS Hispeed web site, which gave me two errors in a row before I gave up trying to book seats and use the English version and did the whole thing in Dutch, while on the phone to a lovely customer service rep at the Schiphol train station, who walked me through everything. You cant book over the phone, but you CAN book a ticket for someone else on the NS Hispeed site--but you need to print out the ticket. Luckily, the lovely, sainted Janneka was willing to do this for him. She even gave my cousin a voucher for a coffee. A few minutes after I booked the ticket, I got a grateful message from the cousin: he was on the first train. Thank God. Crisis averted. Only took most of an hour. THEN I GET ANOTHER MESSAGE: I left my second bag on the platform. Now by this point I am pretty sure my cousin doesnt have two brain cells left to rub together. Hes going to finally get to Dresden and Im going to smell the booze before I see him. But hes having a really bad day, so I want to see what I can do to help. I called Janneka back and she located the bag. The problem? The best way for the bag to be reunited with my cousin is for him to turn around and come get it. By now I do not trust my cousin to successfully navigate his way out of a soggy paper bag, so theres no way thats happening. Thankfully I have relatives in the Netherlands, so I made some phone calls back home (carefully asking my grandfather not to spill the beans about what a dumbshit his grandson is). I come up with an address in the Netherlands to ship the bag to. Thank the Lord. But then Janneka calls back and says they can ship it right to Dresden. It wont get here until my cousins home, so hes not getting it back until I fly across the pond in April, but still. Anyway, Im pretty sure he actually has no money for food until he gets here, so I made him a lunch for when we pick him up, but holy crap. Pull yourself together, man!
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:44:02 +0000
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