Week #41 in Germany (Our Berlin Adventure, Part 3)

(Continued from part 2) In the morning, we were able to use the bathroom, and leave our room on time. We had to wait about 10 minutes for the office to open so we could check-out, but we were still on time. We had to buy a new ticket to get to the train station, and we accidentally bought the wrong one. Luckily, we didn't get stopped by any controllers, and everything was okay. We had to switch trains at Alexanderplatz, so I bought the ticket for the entire journey back to Offenburg there. I used my debit card for the transaction, and I gave Mehmet the ticket. I didn't think about where I put my receipt, because I didn't think I would need it. We got to the train station, and everything was on time. At one of the stops we picked up someone from mitfahrgelegenheit, and we traveled until Leipzig with him. In Leipzig, we met with 2 other people, their baby, and their dog. We had bought a 5-person ticket since the dog counts as 1 person. Everything was going smoothly until Frankfurt.

In Frankfurt, we had about 30 minutes until the next train, so we went to get something to eat. We also bought some chocolate for the journey. Then, we waited on platform 18 for the train from Frankfurt to Mannheim. About 2 minutes before departure, we saw that it had changed to platform 17, so we had to run to catch it. Luckily, the people we were traveling with had already boarded. After a few minutes, the ticket controller came through for the ticket. Mehmet reached in his pocket. The pocket with his wallet and the ticket, but at that point, his pocket only had his wallet...the ticket had been lost. At this point, we start freaking out, going through all our things. He must have dropped the ticket in Frankfurt when he pulled out his wallet to pay for something. I had paid with my debit card, so there was verification through my account. The controllers asked for the receipt, but I couldn't find it. Since I couldn't find the receipt, they wrote us all tickets. The controllers said I could print off my bank transactions, then we could all go to the travel center in Mannheim and explain the situation. Two minutes later, I found the receipt, but we still had to fix things in Mannheim.


Once we arrived to Mannheim, we had 29 minutes before our next train. The controller had explained that we could have our fine forgiven and make the rest of our journey once we talked to the travel center agent. The travel center agent wasn't on the same page. He said that we had to have the ticket. Since we lost the ticket, we had to contest the fine in writing with the appropriate authorities. Since I had my receipt, they would be able to look up the transaction number, but the agent in Mannheim couldn't. That also meant we had to buy another ticket from Mannheim to Offenburg. The agent was annoyed with us because we were told something else by the controller. He was also slow enough that he made us miss our train by 1 minute. So, instead of getting to Offenburg at 11:13pm, we didn't get there until 12:40am. 


And that was my Berlin experience....please, don't ask if I had fun.