For the last week I've been trying to prepare the red eject button. When I pushed it, I would bail out of my flight back to the U.S., and instead remain here in Germany for the next semester. But of course there were a lot of factors to consider so I tried to put the actual decision off as long as possible.
Then over the weekend I made up my mind to stay. There were still some major obstacles to overcome, namely that of finding lodging here in Munich, and changing the date of my flight, so my future was by no means certain. Here's what happened.
On Sunday my landlord suddenly materialized, unbeckoned. We got to talking. Within ten minutes I had secured a room in the Startlodge keller for the next two months and someone else's room after that. Now I don't want to make this sound like it was an ordinary occurrence. Because it wasn't. Lodging in Munich is more expensive than in any other German city, and rooms are in general extremely hard to come by. (This is what originally motivated Siemens to set up Startlodge for its student interns.) And I had been under the impression that Startlodge was full up for the next two months, and furthermore I was almost certain that the room in the keller wouldn't be rented out for a long period of time, but would be kept free for people who only needed to stay in Munich for a few days or a week at a time. Meeting my landlord on my way out the door, a half-eaten sandwich in hand, and getting a room was...improbable, to say the least.
So much for the first major obstacle. I started to worry about the second. I would have to wait until Monday morning, a mere 4 days before my intended departure, to change the date of my ticket with the travel agency. When I handed over my ticket the lady looked at it with dismay and told me she probably wouldn't be able to change the date, as it was through Air Canada and, well, this is Europe. But she told me she'd try. I waited in silence for several minutes while she tapped through screens. I should have been nervous but wasn't. There was something about this whole thing that seemed destined to be. I had felt it the previous day when my landlord appeared. I felt it now as I watched her, and reached into my pocket where the dreamcatcher that Martina had given me (saying mysteriously "you're going to need it") was. At this precise moment she looked away from the screen and told me she had managed to get the flight. I was all smiles. I asked her what the chances of this happening were. She told me 5%.
Now I'm not a superstitious person. In fact, I'm probably one of the least superstitious people you're ever going to meet. If I believe in anything it's in the triumph of the rational mind over the superstitions of the past, and in keeping with that idea here's the probability that these two independent events would take place, if you figure there was a 5% chance of either happening by themselves: .25%, or 1 in 400. Let's assume that what actually happened to me was the only way I would stay in Munich (which is completely reasonable...I don't think I would have gotten a room elsewhere, and if I had to pay another $700 for a ticket from the U.S. to Germany, I wouldn't do it). Then, were we to rewind the tape and repeat Sunday and Monday 400 times, on 399 of those times yours truly would end up on a plane back to the U.S., and only in 1 case--the reality that I'm in right now--would yours truly be sitting in Munich, Germany, kicking back and thinking about the upcoming 4 months at his cool (to become even cooler shortly) job at Siemens, hanging with his German friends, with Eric in Prague or Berlin or who knows where else, and with the wonderful girl he just met and doesn't want to leave because this could only be the beginning: Martina.
Posted by Alan at August 13, 2002 11:03 PM