Sometimes your best laid plans don't work out, regardless of how firm you think they are. Last weekend, we booked our weekend trip for the LDS Switzerland Temple in Bern (which we'll cover in a future post) and the Black Forest in Germany (Schwarzwald). The Black Forest Tourism site has a section for booking rooms in large homes throughout the region (Traveling with a family of 6, space can be hard to find, so staying in a large place is often a must).
Before we left for our trip, we found a place that was centrally located, booked it, and received our online confirmation (note the obvious foreshadowing). After a 3 hour drive through windy, yet scenic hills, we arrived at our location. When we knocked on the door, an old woman who spoke in only German met us, and through her flustered expressions, we gathered that 1) she had no idea why we were there and 2) we would not be staying there, as planned. After showing her the email (which was in German) she simply shook her head and pointed down the hill, signaling to us to find another room. Now, this would not be too big of a deal if 1) it wasn't a holiday weekend in Germany and 2) we didn't have 6 people to find a room for.
Driving up and down the main road and into the various towns, the places we found said they had no room for us. After an hour, we were able to find a new place to stay where the owner was able to put us in two adjoining rooms. The place we found was in a nice quiet town, next to a quite idyllic Black Forest setting.
In the end, we paid more than we planned on, but we also learned that sometimes things work out, even if they're not the way you thought they would.
