Sunday, June 1, 2025
Neither one of us slept that great, and I was kind of surprised I was sleeping when Nathan’s alarm went off at 5. We quickly got up and ready, finished packing, had a cup of instant coffee, and by 6:30, we were out the door.
The bus station is only about a 10-15 minute walk from our hotel, and we made it to the 24-hour bakery with time to spare. We picked out our pastries and walked across the street to the bus station.
There were quite a number of people already waiting for the bus, and more continued to come as we waited. The bus pulled up, and the people began wedging to get on the bus. No line, no queue, certainly not first come, first served, but a good old-fashioned European wedge.
Nathan put our bags under the bus, and we both sort of hung back. Had I known the stakes, I would have gotten more forceful, but they certainly wouldn’t leave ticketed passengers at the station? Would they?
The line to get on board slows, and the driver keeps counting the remaining seats, and by now, people behind Nathan are starting to panic a little, and I realize that the bus driver will not allow passengers to stand, so when the seats run out, so does your luck.
The driver announces that he has 5 remaining seats, and wouldn’t you know it, I was number 4 and Nathan was 5. We really dodged a bullet! Makes no sense, their system, because they sell bus tickets for a particular day, and not for a specific departure time, so it’s possible to oversell a bus. Additionally, two women in front of me bought tickets straight from the driver, and when there are ticketed passengers behind them who might be denied boarding, that seems wrong.
Anyway, we grab our seats, the literal last row of the bus, and one girl is begging to be let on. She’s pleading with the whole bus for someone to get off and take a later one. There’s one empty seat remaining, the back rest completely broken and floppy, and it’s right in front of me. We holler out that there’s a broken seat left, and the driver, rather reluctantly, lets her on.
Boy, was she thankful. I explained the seat, and she proceeded to sit straight up without using the backrest for the 40-minute ride to the airport.
I have no idea how many people we left at the curb, but I suspect it was about 5.
Our luck did not stop there! On the way to the airport, a small grey car stopped on the road in front of our bus. Just stopped. We were going along at a good clip, and for a moment, it seemed likely we were going to hit it. The bus driver braked, and honked, and the little car got moving again, just in the nick of time.
There’s more! Since I booked our flight tickets under two reservations, Ljubljana to Munich, and Munich to Denver, we needed to ask the Lufthansa check-in agents to check our bags all the way to Denver, so we don’t need to pick them up at baggage claim in Munich and redeposit them with United. I had researched this online, and I knew it was up to the agent’s discretion.
I pegged our odds at 50/50, but we’ve never done this before, and it really depends on luck. If we can sweet-talk the agent to tag our bags all the way to Denver, it means we can leave the Munich airport and go down to Marienplatz to be tourists during our layover.
Wouldn’t you know, the sweet Lufthansa agent who helped us was more than happy to do it! We thanked her profusely and went through security to our gate.
Once we landed in Munich, with only our carry-on bags in tow, we took the S8 suburban train from the airport to the city center and sought out lunch. We settled on Der Pschorr, a place we’d eaten at when we were here in 2023. The food was good, and it was a nice way to break up our long travel day. We spent another 30 or so minutes walking around the touristy Marienplatz and Viktualienmarkt, before catching the S8 back to the airport.
Back at the airport, we got through security and immigration without issue, although I think my EU border control agent gave my unofficial tourist passport stamps a funny look.
The flight to Denver was late taking off, and thoroughly boring. United really needs to up its movie game.
We were delayed even more coming into Denver due to afternoon thunderstorms. I think we were flying around waiting out the storm for another hour. By the time we landed, walked through the airport, cleared customs and immigration, and were waiting for our bags, it was 8 pm. Our airport shuttle was scheduled for 8:10. My heart sank. DIA’s baggage system is notoriously slow. “The Great Equalizer,” I always call it.
Our bags came down the belt, and we hustled out of the airport and up to the shuttle right as the driver was shutting the door. I may have even run and waved my arms a little. But we made it.
Should have bought a lottery ticket.