So when I got to Stralsund, I went to the information desk to ask for directions to the bus station because I'm cheap and wanted to take a bus to Rostock, but the woman there didn't speak much English. I'm pretty sure she was telling me that there was no bus to Rostock when another older German woman walked up to me and said "Rostock? Come!" She was smiling and beckoning me, so I followed her down a flight of stairs, up another, and onto a loading area for the high speed ICE trains. We kinda talked for a bit, I understood enough to tell her that my mom was near Munich and that's where I wanted to go. I tried to tell her that my mom was a student in an Arabic school but she thought I kept saying aerobics, haha. So she was suuuuuuper friendly and helpful since the ticket checker/seller person didn't speak English either. I told them I wanted to go to Munich- I think I said "Ich möchte nach München" but it may have come out differently- and a German guy sitting across from me translated that they recommended I go to Hamburg for a connecting trip since the train I was on was headed there.
After the first stop (I forget where it was) a German girl about my age sat in the seat behind the older German and I and she spoke English very well. She was super helpful too, she overheard us having another conversation with the ticket checker and was able to translate everything perfectly. When she found out I wanted to go to Munich she even used her iPhone to look up prices and schedules for trains out of Hamburg for me. She recommended I take another ICE train rather than a bus because it would only take 6 hours instead of like 14, hah. And she wrote everything down for me. Adorbs.
I tried looking her up on Facebook but apparently Müller is a super common last name for Germans. =[
So I took her advice and then said thanks and goodbye to her when she got off at Rostock. Then, in Hamburg, I got off the train with my German lady friend and she took me all the way to the track I had to wait by before she said goodbye to me. I thanked her but she was so nice and helpful that I wish I could have expressed it better.
I ate lunch (way cheaper in Germany, under 5 Euro for a sandwich and 1,5 liter bottle of juice) and got on the train when it showed up 40 minutes later. The ride wasn't all the bad. I did have to get out of my awesome window seat because some jerk "reserved" it. I didn't even know you could do that on trains, and he never proved it so I any time he walked past my new, crap seat I kinda glared at him and his kid. Whatevs. The scenery was nice.
Took that one out the train window.
And then I arrived in Munich. I walked around a bit, found a Starbucks with free wifi, but I hate Starbucks so I refused to go in and just used their internet outside on a bench. Found a super sweet hostel called Euro Youth Hostel and walked there from the Marienplatz and booked a night.
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