TheWholeStory // episode_06

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August 5th, 2022

In just over a day here at the Radisson Red, I’ve devised a morning routine where I can slip out of my room well before dawn without waking Frank, and have too many cups of coffee while I plan our Eurostar adventure and prep Summer work plans for my teaching team. It’s a tenuous space— this hotel living—? a feeling between being taken care of… no dishes or laundry to do (yet) and a French press coffee placed before me at dawn and the chaos lurking beneath the surface. The waiter delivering my morning coffee only knows that I’m jet lagged and need to get some work done while my family sleeps.

While Ellis & Peter are completely satisfied using quarantine as a reason to not ever leave this hotel with its unlimited supply of electricity and quality wifi, these little plants need some oxygen and sunlight— we gotta get out a little bit. Again, I don’t really know what we’re allowed to do or not do, supposed to do or not do. So, being American and all, we’ll just do what we want until someone tells us we can’t. Then, we’ll figure out a way around it.

With only 4 nights in London before our 2nd attempt at entry, we didn’t do much, but what we managed was fun. Airport hotels don’t offer much in the way of ‘walkable experiences,’ but we discovered a small English pub about 10 minutes’ walk. Immediately upon leaving the hotel, New Yorkers that we are, we had that ‘is it safe to be out wandering around here? Feeling. But reaching this English pub felt like an oasis. A man at the door required that we use hand sanitizer and complete a Covid form. I diligently completed said forms everywhere we went, while Frank Peter and Ellis competed to see who could come up with the most ridiculous information for their form with Ellis’s chosen alias, Trundle Wiggins becoming the clear frontrunner..

This place was homey. There was delicious barbecued meats and English dishes and beers that tasted better because your butt was sitting on a picnic bench in the summer dusk. We were a bit like a circus attraction, as everyone from the host to the waitress to the damn owner of the place was fascinated at these English speaking people with the strange accents. What are you doing here? Why are you here? Intrigued and fascinated by our determination and sheer will, I’m sure we left the table with them thinking— those people are half crazy.

Cabin fever set in by Thursday, mixed up likely with some anxiety about the coming Eurostar trip and the over under of our probability of getting into Germany along with the unspoken reality of what we were going to do if we got denied again. This is not even a touchable topic of conversation. Suspended disbelief is an essential ingredient in a brazen and half cocked plan. So, we decided to rent a car for the day and take Ellis & Pete around London. We hopped in a cab to Sixt rental car, back at the airport. In getting there, going through the always awful process of actually obtaining keys to car, the desk agent asks for Francesco’s passport. His passport? She has his drivers license, his international license and his credit card. But alas, she also needs his passport and she can’t rent us the car until she has it. I? can’t give her a photo of it that’s in my phone, even though she’s going to take the actual passport and guess what— make a copy of it! It’s hot out. The boys are sitting outside waiting. Patience levels are low and anxiety levels are high and even something that’s supposed to be fun is immediately not fun.?

She agrees to give us the rental, but now we have to drive back to the hotel, get the passport, bring the passport back to the rental pickup, have her make a copy of it, and THEN we can go enjoy a few hours in London. Why didn’t we just take a cab? Frank drives us into the center of London, in a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side, driving on the wrong side of the road. I tell Ellis & Peter that the last time Frank drove us in London he nearly killed us trying to get the hang of the whole thing.

We went to Box Park for lunch— a huge construction of shipping containers with hipster stores and food stands. Disinfect and fill out the form… show the form on your phone to a big security guy at the entrance and bang! We’re in. For the time being, food is the primary coping mechanism, so burgers and barbecue sandwiches and beers of course are consumed in the sun followed by ice cream and walking around to see graffiti and a drive by of London Bridge, the Eye and Westminster Abbey. The boys are just as happy when it’s time to get back to the hotel and play video games, and for me to pack us back up for our next quest.?

We arrived to London on Tuesday evening, and it’s now Friday morning. How to enter Germany during a global pandemic, Part 2. Our Eurostar tickets would take us from London, into France and finally to Brussels. We’d switch there to a DB regional train going over the border into Germany, landing us in Cologne. The train was fairly early in the morning. We arrived to the station, dragging baggage and backpacks, race gear and cameras. I had the digital tickets in my phone. I was pretty much the gatekeeper of all travel documentation & plans, and the general rule was follow the leader, don’t ask too many questions, and give as little information as possible when someone asks. I’m nervous but organized, I think. After the debacle with my papers in Hamburg I would have tattooed our travel info to the inside of my eyelids.?

I scan the boys through with our barcoded ticket on my phone. I’m next, and through the gate I go. Frank has his barcode on his phone, and scans. Bzzt. Not working. He tries again. Nothing. You’re kidding me right? A gentleman comes out of the ticket office to offer his help. We realize that I’ve scanned Frank’s barcode instead of mine, and so now technically he has to use mine to get in which you’re not supposed to do because it’s not an airplane but it’s like an airplane in the fact that your passport and ID is attached to your ticket and yada yada omg can we just take one single step on this journey without drama. The man looks at our tickets, I apologize profusely for the confusion, and he lets Frank through.?

‘Wait,’ he says.

‘Are you Americans?!’?

‘What are you doing here?’

I laugh, tell him it’s a long story, and high tail it through the turnstile. Whew. We’re in. Pete & Ellis are waiting patiently, and Frank is giving me that omg are you fucking kidding me— I love you but this is nuts face only a spouse can offer you. It’s a delicate balance of I trust you wholeheartedly and we’re in this together but I’m going to lose my mind with you.?

And then, unexpectedly, like a video game boss, there it is. The Passport control booth.

Passport control? There isn’t supposed to be passport control. It’s a land border. Reddit didn’t say anything about this. Eurostar FAQ’s didn’t say anything about this. We haven’t even left the UK yet. We haven’t even gotten to the boarding area. Okay. Deep breath. The boys are standing awkwardly, waiting for frank and me, letting people go past them in line. There’s not really a line, thankfully, so it’s just a moment before we’re up. I’ve got a stack of passports and a mask to hide my PTSD strained facial expression. Nothing is going to hide the pit sweat already forming on my t-shirt.?

I approach the booth, boys and bags behind me, and place my passport on the ledge, holding the rest. She takes a look.?

‘You are American?’

Yes.

And you live in the UK?

No.?

‘How long are you in the UK?’

‘Four or five days now.’

‘And what is your business in France?

‘Um, we’re not going to France, we’ll take the Eurostar to Brussels and switch there to a DB to Cologne. Germany is our final destination.’

She’s looking at her computer. She’s thumbing through my passport. She’s glancing at me and the group of boys and bags behind me. Back to looking at the computer again. Just a moment she says. And then… she leaves the booth. Fuuuuuuck. As has already been established, you do NOT want them to leave the booth.

I look back at Frank for a brief exchange of ‘how screwed do you think we are?’ And then to Pete & Ellis who are thankfully, not making eye contact with me. It feels like she’s gone for an eternity. I wait. I watch. She’s talking to another agent. She’s gone again. It’s amazing the feeling of helplessness that ensues when someone in a uniform walks away with your passport.

I can see her making her way back to the booth. I’m still standing there, attempting to look casual and moderately confident, but not too confident. She steps in through her side door.?

And then, a sound as sweet as a Vegas slot machine hitting a jackpot. Cha-chink! She stamps my passport.

‘May I have the others please?’

Fumbling and nearly hyperventilating, I hand them over.

It seems, as far as I can tell on this adventure so far, that as long as you’re not going to become a country’s problem, they have no issue sending you along to the next country. Had our final destination been France, there would have been NO WAY we were getting through this border crossing with the French authorities. But because our train went all the way to Brussels and our intended destination was Germany, the French were happy enough to interpret the existing muddied rules as ‘okay, I guess we let them go.’

Past the passport control booth and into the waiting area. We were getting on this train and that was AWESOME! Okay— a few minutes of normalcy. I’m taking a bathroom break. Frank’s gonna grab a coffee. Does anyone want a snack??We get on the train and have seats facing each other around a table. Act calm. Don’t draw too much attention. Again, I’m sitting there thinking that I don’t even know what we can or should do or not do, except to smile and shut up and act like we’re supposed to be here.

About halfway through the journey, before we reach Brussels, I can see a man making his way through the car. Is this a ticket collector for the train? Border Patrol? Some type of Covid police searching this train for brazen, rule bending Americans? He stops and asks for our passports. Again with the where are you going, where did you come from how long are you staying bit. I answer the questions with brief but satisfactory answers. He warns us of pickpockets and people targeting foreigners. He seems less fazed by us than I expect, and after a few moments where the time slinky stretched out to full extension, he’s gone.

The train makes one stop in France and then a while later, there we are in Brussels. We gather all of our bags and lug ourselves off the train. I scope the platform. Border agents? Covid police? Nothing. We make our way nonchalantly off the platform like we are absolutely supposed to be there, and before I know it, we’re in the main terminal heading toward a set of double doors to the outside. Oh my god. We’re here. Well, in Belgium, which is pretty damn close to being in Germany. We’re inside the EU, on Schengen soil, and we’re going to have a bowl of pasta at a shitty train station terrace cafe before getting on our Deutsche Bahn train to Cologne. I know we’re not out of the woods yet, but it’s kind of wonderful and amazing that no one seems to give a crap that we’re here.?

After lunch we get on our DB train. It’s a local train and less glamorous than the Eurostar (which for that matter, is not glamorous). I’m watching google maps to see the point at which we cross over the German border. I’m scanning the train car for more border police or passport checkers or ticket takers or anything, and I’m pretty prepared to jump out the side of this moving train car and parkour role into the gravel and weeds, making a run for it if I have to. And before I know it we have uneventfully arrived in Cologne. We gather up our stuff, again, and head out into the German air. OMFG. We’re here. We’re. In. Germany.?

After a modicum of celebratory high fives and ‘I can’t believe we’re really here’s, we get two Ubers and load up— Ellis & Pete with a few bags and me & Frank with the rest. In half an hour’s time, we’re in Bonn, pulling up to our home for the next month. It’s got a garden, and two floors, and a sauna in the bathroom. We can walk right into the center of everything, and the kitchen is beautiful. But the real gem is a hipster coffee shop, directly opposite our front door. Wooden benches line matte black painted window panes, revealing the silver gleam of a high end espresso machine. Frank drops the bags at the door and heads immediately across the street. He grabs hold of the barn wood door handle and— oh. It’s locked.?

The bearded German sitting casually on the bench, smoking his cigarette and sipping his to go cup says in his best broken English. Oh sorry, we are closed now.?

‘Oh okay.’ What time do you open tomorrow? Frank asks, with every intention of being the first in line.

'Oh no. We are on vacation now. It is closed.’

‘Yeah but until when?’ Frank urges.

Like a few weeks I think?

Like a few weeks. Like pretty much our whole stay here in Bonn. Cool. Got it.

And there it was. A lurking reminder of constantly tempered excitement. Are we lucky to be here, or do we deserve to be here? Are we stupid or genius?