Bus Adventures

–Marta Mullin

We lived in Germany in the 70’s and 80’s scattered across multiple bases. In the late 70’s while I was still in 5th-6th grade, Dad decided my girlfriends and I should take the German bus to go skating. (He would pick us up later.) He carefully gave me instructions about which bus to take and where to get off. 

I was NOT known for my sense of direction or common sense. 

I watched the bus coming towards us and said, “We can catch the bus on this side, we don’t need to cross over.” Famous last words as we ended up down at Frankfurt’s Hauptbahnhof. Three young American pre-teens. 

Of course, we spoke a little German but the bus driver took one look at us at the LAST stop and asked where we were going. The American skate rink was about an hour behind us. The driver must have been a father and could not let us off without calling my dad. My mother was freaking out, “Larry, you go get the girls!” Dad was a lot calmer and spoke with the driver who put us on the right bus without charging us anything extra. He told the other driver where we needed to get off and scooted us to a seat close to the driver. 

When we got off the bus, we still had to find our way to the skate rink and now only had an hour to skate.  We ended being allowed to stay later and skated the night away. 

I never knew how close we were to some pretty dangerous and sketchy areas during this adventure. No way would I ever let a group of 11-year-old girls run around on a bus today. We were lucky to have been helped.  I am still not great with directions and am super attached to my maps app.

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