Put not your faith in the information booth

As if Austria meant to take a final swipe at me, it snowed harder the morning of March 14th than it had for all the days that I had been there. For my part, I showed my utter disdain for Austrian weather by refusing to change from sandals into the covered shoes that I had packed in my bag. I managed to keep my feet dry, but God alone knows how.

I made a mistake of trusting the woman at the information booth at the Linz train station. Or, maybe I made a mistake of not trusting her; judge for yourself.

When I arrived on March 1st, I took a bus from the airport to the train station. The bus dropped me off directly in front of the train station, on the same side of the road. The intelligent thing to do would have been to conclude that the bus would still arrive on that side of the road, too. However, you're dealing with Jack Perry here, whom you shouldn't expect to do the intelligent thing. In any case, I wanted to be sure what time it would arrive. Stepping off the tram, then, I strolled over to the information booth.

I asked the attendant, Verstehen sie Englisch?. As I have come to expect, her face took a pained look, and she made a hand signal that suggested, "so-so". As I have mentioned before, this is par for the course in Europe, at least in my experience. I asked as simply as I could when the next bus for the airport would arrive.

In quite excellent English, the woman answered that the bus for the airport was number 601, that it should arrive at 7:40, and that, moreover, I could catch it if I walked under the street, to the opposite side, turned left, and waited at the bus terminal there.

That last part sounded funny; after all, the bus dropped me off on the same side of the street as the train station. But, she's the one in the information booth, so she should know, right?

I followed her advice to the letter. There was no bus "terminal", but there was a bus "stop", and I was reasonably sure that was what she meant. As I waited at the bus stop, the snow continued to fall heavily. By 7:50, it was clear the bus was late. I decided to ask someone near me if this was the correct stop for the bus to the airport. Someone confirmed this, although there was some discussion about it. Again, the language barrier was involved here.

I waited a few more minutes. Around 8:00, the bus finally arrived...

...on the same side of the road as the train station. ARGH.

It was definitely the bus: number 601, bright red, with Blue Danube Airport Linz Flughafen written on the side. It stopped, dropped off a lot of people, picked up a few, then drove off again.

I stood there unable to believe my own stupidity. Why did I heed an information booth attendant rather than my unreliable memory?

I waited a few minutes, betting that the bus might circle around and come back the other way. Alas, it did not.

Muttering imprecations, I grabbed my bags and trudged back to the tunnel, then into the train station, and up to the information booth. My feet were miraculously dry, although my big toes were chilly.

The same woman was there. I waited for two people before me, then asked how much a taxi would cost.

She thought a second. "Twenty euros, maybe twenty-five?" she offered.

That was fine. I decided to mention to her that the bus came on the same side of the road as the train station, not the other side.

"No," she said with an irritated expression. "You have to walk under the road, then turn left."

"I did," I insisted, mildly though. "I stood there and waited. The bus didn't come on that side. It came on the other side."

"No," she repeated, and shook her head to make it clear that I could not possibly be right. "No, no."

I stood for a moment in complete disbelief. Finally, I shrugged and walked away. The woman in the information booth should know better than I. Maybe she was right. Maybe the bus did come on my side, after circling around as I thought it might. I doubt it, though.

I took a taxi anyway. He spoke even less English than she did, but he listened to fun music, and he dropped me off at the airport... not on the other side of the road.