Die Busfahrt

When I saw the bus, I thought it was a joke. Parked outside the first European McDonald’s I’ve ever seen was a stubby little short-bus that one might see being ridden by the kids at school who had too much of an affinity for fire. I had no idea how it was going to fit seventeen students, a driver, a director, and all of our luggage. It barely did.

The driver (who drives like my dad, but resembles a mound of dough with hair) loaded us all in and took off. He didn’t speak a word of English, and so it was up to our resident director to do all the talking.

The drive was great. The whole way from Frankfurt to Freiburg should have taken only two and a half hours, and was filled with terrain that’s similar to the lower mainland. I kid you not; the drive to Freiburg was like the drive from Vancouver to Seattle. Now, I said, “should of only taken two and a half hours” because that time frame doesn’t include flat tires. Nor does it include repair shops that have to order in bus tires.

On the Autobahn (which is just as cool as you think it is… No speed limit!) we hit something that took out one of the bus’ many tires. We kept driving to the designated waiting area so as not to ruin too much of the trip and hopefully find a place that can fix a tire in a relatively short amount of time. When we found a place (and had to carefully drive through an alleyway with a ceiling cut into row houses) it took them two hours to change the tire because they had to go and get one from another location. Oh, they also forgot it the first time they came back.

However, this gave the group more time to get to know each other, find out where we’re from and suffer this farce together. Oh, and the driver remained completely upbeat the entire time. A few notable people at this point: Warren: The man’s outgoing, friendly, and moderately insane without being overbearing, or too much; Michael: is of German immigrant decent, and as such has a pretty good knowledge of the language and culture. He’s from Toronto, and has the exact same voice as Max Train back in Vancouver; Johana (pronounced like Yo! Hannah!): who also reminds me of someone back home. She has the exact same voice, and manner of speech as Tolmie. This girl’s pretty funny and has a bit of a crass sense of humor.

In any event, once the tire was repaired we were on our way and arrived in Freiburg well enough to get acquainted with our residences.

Tschuss!