The ‘cheap fare’ illusion and my crazy night in Dortmund, Germany

I know, I haven’t done my write up of Portugal and Spain yet. As the Spanish would say, I will do it ‘mañana.’ Instead, I feel the need to capture what happened to me last night in Dortmund while it is still fresh in my mind.

You know, you’d think I would be travel savvy enough to have thought through my decision to take advantage of a cheap EasyJet fare to a random German city I’d never heard of prior to looking on the EasyJet website for cheap fares. I’m well aware of being careful about which airport you’re flying into – that if a city has multiple airports, make sure that you’re not flying into one that is so far away from the city that you’ll pay an arm and a leg to actually make it into the city – that so called cheap deal can be misleading.

When I saw this flight from Barcelona to Dortmund, I must have been acting on a whim of spontaneity, which is rather unlike me. I mean, when I booked my arrival time at the hostel, I said I’d be there at 9pm. So obviously I’d had enough sense to recognise that I wouldn’t actually see any of Dortmund – I’d arrive, go to my hostel, sleep, wake up, make my way to Frankfurt. I didn’t sit and do any of the actual math, or research the train fare from Dortmund to Frankfurt. If I had, I would’ve realised that for the fare from Barcelona to Dortmund + the train fare to Frankfurt; I really should’ve booked with a  ‘real’ airline that flew from Barcelona to Frankfurt and skipped the whole Dortmund extravaganza of a crazy waste of time. Then again, maybe it was meant to happen so I could come away having learnt this lesson and having an absurd story to tell.

Most hostels provide instructions on how to get from various points (the airport, train station, bus station etc) to the hostel. The instructions offered by A&O Dortmund is that I should get the Airport Express bus to the Dortmund haubtbahnof (main train station) and then they offered walking directions from the train station to the hostel. I found the stand for the airport express bus, to be reading the sign that the next one wasn’t leaving until 9:30pm. It was 8pm. It was freezing cold – I mean, not quite England cold, but I had just come from Spain. A girl wearing a backpack came up behind me and spoke to me in another language, which I thought was German. I told her I only spoke English. Turns out, she spoke English too. She remarked that we could get a shuttle bus to a local train station right near the airport, and get a local train to the haubtbahnof. We chatted for a little while and she seemed nice and harmless and it made more logical sense to try her suggestion than to sit for an hour and a half in the cold.

 So I followed her onto the shuttle bus, we were dropped off at one of those train stations that is literally the platforms, a bench and a ticket machine – no staff or toilets or facilities – and we went over to check out the timetable. She was distraught because the next train wasn’t due to leave until 9:30pm. She told me that the regional train would take ten, maybe fifteen minutes to arrive in Dortmund, so to me we were still making up time because the original bus from the airport was going to take between 30 – 45 minutes. And from all this I got to chat to someone and try something a bit different, so I was still in good spirits. We chatted, turned out she was on annual leave from work and went to Barcelona for five nights on her own, to get away to somewhere warmer. She goes on jaunts occasionally and always takes her backpack and stays in youth hostels. We talked about various things, including the English language and travelling, and how if she didn’t speak English she couldn’t get by in other European countries.  9:30pm came and there was an announcement to be careful of the oncoming train (so the girl told me) and the small crowd of gathering people all stood up and were waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Ten minutes passed, and there was no train at our platform. People started to leave. A few trains came to other platforms, going to other destinations, none going toward the Dortmund hauptbahnof. We went back over to the departures board to see if there had been a delay – the 9:30pm train ceased to exist. It had not arrived, disappeared from the board, and now a 10:30pm train was due to arrive next on Platform 5.

How can a scheduled train just not arrive?? My new friend simply rolled her eyes and said “That’s Deutsche Bahn (German rail)!”

By now it was getting dark and she didn’t think this was the best train station for us to be sitting at this late at night, so we decided to take the shuttle bus (which was back there at the time) back to the airport. Whilst we were on the bus, I expressed that my only worry about all of this drama was that I could not recall if my hostel had 24 hour reception. She asked if I had their phone number, I handed over my booking details and she called them for me, establishing that there was 24 hour reception and because I had paid a deposit online, my bed was held until I arrived. I felt a lot better now! We arrived back at the airport, a sense of déjà vu! We’d now missed the 9:30pm airport bus, and the next airport bus wasn’t due until 10:30pm. Our plan was to just wait for this bus, but she felt bad that she’d had me buy a ticket for a train that didn’t come – it wouldn’t be valid on the airport bus. So she was determined to find another way. She went over to another bus that was there and had a chat with the driver. New plan! My ticket was valid on this bus. He would take us to a metro station, we could take the metro to the main station. I asked her if she could ask him how often the metro ran at this time of night. He told her that it was timed so that it left about five minutes after his bus arrived. Perfect.

Finally, after much more drama than necessary, Plan C had worked and seventeen stops on the metro later, we arrived at the Dortmund haubtbahnof. My new friend had to get two more regional trains, evidently, to get to where she had to be, so I insisted she be on her way since it was getting late. In our conversations, she knew I was staying at the hostel. I had told her that it was very nearby - my directions from the hostel were to take the main exit, turn to the left and walk for 300m. My companion insisted that she had stayed in the only hostel in Dortmund once and that the directions were wrong – she gave me a list of instructions including “go over the road, up the stairs to the church, turn left, then right, then left....” I knew she was wrong – I would not have booked a hostel that was complicated to get to when arriving at 9pm at night. I didn’t have a map and didn’t worry about printing one because I would’ve conferred with a map and their directions a couple of months ago when I made this string of bookings, and decided that it was simple enough to not require a map. However, she evidently was feeling guilty about having taken me on this wild goose chase – I would’ve been in the city an hour earlier had I just waited for the 9:30pm airport bus – so she wanted to accompany me to make sure I arrived safely.

And so, off we went, across the road, up the stairs, behind the church, up an alley... She was looking less and less certain as she searched her mind for something familiar from this one night she spent at the hostel a few years ago.  Finally, I exclaimed, “Look, I’ve stayed at 57 hostels in my life. Sometimes the directions aren’t very clear, but never, ever have I seen a hostel mix up ‘turn to the left and walk 300m’ with the way you’ve taken me.” At this comment she paused, thought, and decided we should head back to the train station. We sort of cut through so we emerged probably 100m or so down from the train station if we’d just walked to the left to begin with. Surely enough, we kept going and volia! Hostel was there.

At this point, I realised I didn’t know my new friends name. I’d followed this girl from the airport to a train station, back to the airport, to a metro station, to the main station and around Dortmund city and I didn’t know her damn name. She told me it was Liza. We hugged, she apologised profusely for her muddling everything up, I wished her well in getting home and told her if the trains weren’t running, she knew how to get to the hostel in Dortmund now! And we parted ways.

In my time with Liza, I got to see suburban Dortmund, I got to use the metro, I got to see the (closed) strip mall in the city centre. I was shown how to use the DB ticket machine and given some tips about my upcoming routes and how I might get some cheaper fares. She might say that she led me in the complete wrong direction the entire time, but all I can do is walk away and laugh at the experience. I made it safely to the hostel in the end, a couple of hours later perhaps, but slightly more enriched with experience. I also got to meet a lovely woman who for me, represents exactly what I would like to think I would be like if I lived in Europe – the kind of person who takes advantage of cheap getaways and explores around them and embraces other cultures and languages and is kind enough to reach out to help a stranger, even if her help was more of a hindrance in the end.

I learned that never again will I blindly book a cheap airline flight to a city I have no interest in seeing or staying in because in the end, the so called cheap fare is just an illusion. I probably broke even in money, if I’d just booked a flight with say, Lufthansa, straight into Frankfurt – but I did lose a day in travel – this is an extra day I could’ve spent in Frankfurt. But as I say, maybe the experience I gained is worth more than any amount of money or time.

 I present to you the two photographs I took in Dortmund, which represents the 12 hours or so that I spent there.

I gasped in excitement at the airport when I saw this – my favourite musical, evidently coming to a local theatre.

And that damn elusive train station. Better to have found it late than never.

Qantas Airways - dispelling the myths

Before I left home, people had asked me “who are you flying with?” I’d tell them Qantas and they’d look at me with a look of somewhat fear. Imagining that the engine will fallout midflight, the flight attendants will go on strike and we’ll have to dish up our own meals. If you’re an Australian reading this then you would have to live under a rock to not be aware of all of the bad press Qantas has had lately - and a lot of it really is exactly that, bad press. I won’t make political commentary or dredge up questionable decisions made by the CEO or go into a trade unionist spiel – that’s not the point here. For those of you who perhaps aren't hip on the Qantas saga, the airline has been the centre of a few controversies in recent times, including a few safety incidents and a rather well publicised (read: front pages and headlines for days) decision by the CEO to ground Qantas flights temporarily as a response to union driven employee action. For all of the shit that gets tossed around on the front pages of newspapers, you don’t see recaps of all of the flights which go off without a hitch. My flight was one of these, and it left me impressed, impressed enough to want to highlight it, to write a blog entry to address the scepticism.

As an Australian, I grew up with Qantas being the dominant airline for middle to upper class travel. Rival competitor Ansett went bust and not long after, the budget airline revolution took off, and all of my flying experiences were with either Virgin Australia or Qantas subsidiary Jetstar Airways. In my adult life, the first time I have flown with Qantas was on the Singapore – London leg of my flight from Australia. It’s weird, such an iconic Australian brand, and yet I had no first hand (remembered) experience to really draw judgement from. I’ve flown with several major airlines for long haul flights – Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, American Airlines, British Airways. My experience with Qantas came out on top.

First impression upon boarding was that the plane was nice. Very nice. Nicer than any I’ve been on before, except maybe a Virgin America flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles which perhaps was more of the funky purple lighting which attracted me. I’m not sure if it was a new plane or recently remodelled or if they’ve just kept it in good nick, but I was genuinely impressed. The spacing of the seats seemed roomier than what I’ve experienced before.  The in-flight entertainment screen was quite large with a great selection of offerings. The food itself was fine in the wider context of airline food – you cannot expect gourmet dining and if you do, you’re silly.

However, what impressed me most was the overall flow of the service. I felt like I was being served by waiters in a fine dining restaurant – every service, whether it be meal, snack or just a water run in the middle of the night, was treated with respect and with an air of sophistication. It’s an interesting branding image, one which I’m curious if it flows through domestically – if Qantas Airways is like a fine dining experience, then Jetstar and Virgin are family restaurants and Tiger Airways is like having a meal from a fast food restaurant.

Apparently there were self service bars for drinks and snacks which I find absolutely amazing – I was on the window and did not have the opportunity to explore properly, just jumping up to use the bathroom when my seat mates also vacated. But these drinks and snacks really weren’t required, with more than adequate rounds being made with various offerings of drinks and my favourite thing, the overnight snack pack – including a little water bottle and some packaged up snacks in a bag, for when you’re feeling a bit peckish or thirsty during the night but not requiring you to be keeping a cup of water on the tray down.

On the whole, I really cannot fault it as a flying experience, so thank you to all of the crew on QF1 Singapore – London departing Singapore late Friday 20 April for the top effort!