A God Fearing Breakfast

I wake up and hit the car again looking for the passport, I find nothing. Erin hits the car and looks, we tear the room apart and still find nothing. It’s ok, I think, this is Germany, people turn in missing stuff all the time. Once I left two pairs of brand new shoes and a jacket in a bag in an H&M in Stuttgart and when I went back to the H&M they were waiting for me. Plus, I have the added advantage of the fact that I have thought about the problem all night, and have figured out entirely what we will do. First I will discuss it with our host – the gentleman who checked us in last night – and ask him if he could help us call the rest area. If we do not locate it there, we will go to the police to make a report, then call the consulate heading to Munich or Stuttgart and get a new passport. The plan doesn’t go totally as planned because when we head down to breakfast the woman of the house is the one serving us and she isn’t quite as genial as her husband. I explain the situation and tell her that we need to call the rest area in Pforzeim – the one of the lovely macchiato – and see if someone turned in the passport. She goes into the back of the house the returns to tell me they don’t have a phone book for towns that far away and we should go to the Post office to look up the number. I am seeing that I am not going to get any help here, so I start to formulate Plan B in my mind. Meanwhile the woman is talking up a hurricane at Erin, and I say “at” because Erin doesn’t speak any German and she is smiling sweetly as the woman goes on and on. The woman is actually being kindly, but her face and tone seem the opposite. She grabs Erin by her ear with what is supposed to be a thoughtful, gentle touch (“oh, you poor dear, I will pray for you!”), but is interpreted by Erin as a scolding (“what were you thinking, leaving your passport at a rasthof!”). We go upstairs to enact Plan B – call Christian to the rescue. The poor boy worked the night before and didn’t get home until 3 AM, but we really needed him because I just felt like I couldn’t handle the language end of it. We wake him up and ask him to call information, track down the rest area, and call to find the passport. He calls back, says information can’t give him a number for something as vague as “Rasthof Porzheim.” “Think about it, Alexis,” he says, tiredly, “you can’t just call and ask information for the number of the Molly Pitcher rest area on the Jersey Turnpike.” Put that way it does seem reasonable that this task is going to be a bit more difficult. For once, I think, my messy nature may help me and perhaps the name of the coffee place is on the cups that are still sitting in the car. No such luck there, but I do find the coffee receipt with not only the name of the stop but phone number and web address (that’s right, the rest stop has a website). I call Christian with the info. Back in the house our hostess tells me she has lit a candle on Erin’s behalf to Mother Mary and that Erin should pray to Saint Anthony. Meanwhile, Christian calls the coffee shop. Then he, Tom, Erin and I trade five phone calls where we impart more information about the incident, and Christian reprimands me about not dealing with this the night before. Thanks German-Brother, if I had known before midnight that this was going to happen I would have been sure to do something about it. Finally, Christian calls saying he has found a manager who will call him back if he locates the wallet. Christian is the voice of doom telling me that because there was cash in there that we are never getting the passport back. My hope is springing eternal, or perhaps I have a romantic view of Germany as a place where honest, helpful people still live.