I’m going to have to write a book about our disastrous adventures here in Germany. Last night, we went shopping at Ikea. We had a lot of stuff and piled it all into our Porsche. Then, Albert turned the key, the car started, and died. We ended up closing Ikea, so there was no one around, and even if there was they couldn’t help. The rotor cap is broken, the engine wasn’t getting any spark.

Luckily, there was a cart man nearby and I asked him in German if we could leave our broken car there overnight. He said it should be fine, but I needed to go speak with security. Another stroke of luck, a security guard happened to be walking by. He didn’t speak English either so I asked again in German if it was ok to leave the car, we would come back in the morning. He said it was fine. I thought I had stretched my German enough for one night, but it doesn’t stop there.

Thanks to my friend for checking on the internet where the nearest train was, we walked to the S-Bahn and were two minutes late for the train. We had to wait a half-an-hour for the next one on a very cold night. The only trains that go directly to our apartment are U-Bahns, so we took the S-Bahn to a main train station, Bahnhof. But, our luck had ended there. The U-Bahns and buses were on strike yesterday. No U-Bahns to ride home and it was way too far to walk. There’s a hotel nearby with a taxi line, we caught a taxi.

I have really been wanting to practice my German, so I had a conversation with the driver. I asked him if he had made a lot of money that day because of the strike. He said he had only had time all day for one cigarette. But then he said, “Geld ist nicht alles im Leben.” “Money isn’t everything in life.” I agreed.

We finally reached the apartment two hours after leaving Ikea. It was quite the adventure. And I’m so excited that I was able to carry on a small conversation.

Albert is working on finding parts and going back to the car today. Hopefully it’s just the spark and not something else, and hopefully we don’t have to have it towed.