Where Bananas and Lost Tickets Go – Switzerland

By: Josh Sprague

Where Bananas and Lost Tickets Go
Switzerland

After three months of delivering pizza in the ghetto, I had finally saved enough money for the European adventure I had planned with my brother Jeremy and our friend Tim. Our departure date had already been delayed several weeks due to projects Tim was having trouble wrapping up. Enduring our terrible jobs as long as we could, my brother and I eventually decided that it’d be best to meet up with Tim in the Old World instead.

Because our Eurail passes had a two-month time limit from the day we first used them, we hitchhiked from Denmark down to Amsterdam and spent time there waiting for Tim. An e-mail arrived two weeks later that informed us that we wouldn’t be meeting our friend anytime soon. Discouraged by the news and sick of the city, we found a hostel in a small corner of Switzerland and jumped on a night train. Warmer weather and a change of scenery were sure to do us some good.

When the night train arrived in Switzerland, we moved to a smaller train, and finally to a very small train that just went up and down a single route with Scuol on the north end and Pontresina on the south end. Our sense of direction and ear for German were both a little off, so we boarded this small train going north when we should have gone south. While I brought out my Eurail pass in expectation for the conductor, Jeremy and I realized our mistake. Of course, we were completely unfazed by this fact and we happily munched on some bananas we had bought while we took in some of the most charming scenery that we had ever encountered. The next stop was a pristine yet deserted little station and we serenely disembarked. While we waited for the train going the opposite direction, we entertained ourselves by taking pictures and getting water from the fresh spring outside. It was warm, it was beautiful, and I remember being incredibly happy.

The hour wait passed quickly and we were soon on the train going south. We were headed to a little town called Zernez where we would take a postal bus to our hostel. A woman soon came to check our tickets and when I went for my pass, it wasn’t there. Within a moment, I realized that the ticket-puncher never came on the previous train and I had left it lying on the table between our seats. The woman dealt well with my sped up English as I described what must have happened. She calmly had us recount to her what train we were on and at what time. “That’s this train,” she said. Apparently, the same train had turned around at Scuol and headed back down the way we were going. I quickly went through the train, looking for the seats we had sat in earlier. Remembering the ads above our heads made this much easier. However, there was no Eurail pass lying here. I wondered if it was taken with the trash, so I checked the receptacle for our bag of banana peels. Those were gone as well. The woman helping us allowed us to ride to Zernez and there she explained to the man at the station what had happened. She left while he made calls to the other station. After several minutes, he told us that no Eurail passes had been found. We gave him our hostel’s information and we were told that they would call when they found it. Confused and discouraged, we sat down on some benches and waited for the postal bus.

While waiting for the bus and while riding it later, the consequences for losing my pass began to sink in. The pass itself had cost around $800 for the two months and I painfully remembered checking “No” on the insurance option to save ten bucks. Even with the insurance, I would only get a refund. Replacements aren’t offered and the passes can only be obtained outside of Europe. Even if I could pay for a replacement and have it sent, it would kill my budget for the trip. I figured that I was left with buying a train ticket to Frankfurt to fly home, screwing Jeremy and Tim through my absentmindedness. These dismal thoughts were interspersed with plea-bargaining with a Higher Power all the while intensely steep mountains and verdant valleys passed in the background. Awe and depression are strange bedfellows and made for a wholly unique mix of emotions.

The bus dropped us off in Santa Maria and the hostel, like everything else, was amazing. Even after 600 years, this farmhouse still didn’t need to add locks to its doors as this part of the country must have a non-existent crime rate. After a quiet, sad meal, I went to a payphone to check the status of the search. The status was reported to me in German and not understanding a word, I hung-up. I made my way to our room and went to sleep.

I awoke fully at 7am and that’s when it all came together in my head. The bananas were gone, so they had to have taken out the trash. Even though the people that checked tickets accepted my pass, many didn’t seem overly familiar with this flimsy piece of Bible-paper in a glossy sleeve. If they hadn’t found it, it had to be thrown away. If it was thrown away, it had to be in the trash at Scuol where they would have cleaned the train before turning around. I needed to call the station.

On my way to call, I passed the lady who ran our hostel. After she figured out my questions, she told me that the garbage truck was coming that morning for their trash. I really hoped Scuol’s truck hadn’t come yet. When I called the station, I was able to speak with the gentleman who helped us the day before. I explained my trash theory to him, but I think I lost him at the bananas. Eventually, he promised to check the trash in Pontresina, but was insistent that the trash was not emptied at Scuol. I told him that it was impossible for it to be in Pontresina and I was insistent about the lack of bananas, but once again, I lost him. It had to be Scuol and I decided that I’d go dig through the trash myself if necessary.

The next postal bus was coming in 10 minutes, so I ran back to the hostel to wake Jeremy up. Surprisingly, he didn’t question my plans and we made it onto the bus. The hour back to the station was filled with more worry than hope and I thought up a few more discouraging scenarios of what could happen if I didn’t find my ticket. Once we arrived at Zernetz, I doubted our prospects enough to buy a 2-way ticket to Scuol. Regardless, we jumped on the train.

We arrived in Scuol after another hour and I wearily observed two large dumpsters next to the station as we pulled up. Inside the station, a young guy began to help us, but soon passed us on to a girl with better English. This girl’s English was great and it was well above everyone we had struggled with so far. “You want to dig through our trash?!” she asked after I explained my loss and my theory on the location of the ticket. I reiterated how much $800 was in francs and she said, “Follow me.”

She lead us to a garage by the platform where a small bag of trash hung and gave us gloves and our own trashbag to help with the sorting. We took trash out one piece at a time and dropped it into the other bag. We kept watch out for our bag of banana peels as that would be a good beacon. However, everyone must have had bananas that day as that seemed to be the majority of the garbage.

As we dug, another gentleman entered, definitely puzzled by two foreigners digging through their refuse. He came and watched along with the girl and they talked while we worked. Another boy entered a moment later with a bag of waste he had just collected from the train we came in on. This encouraged me that I was right about them cleaning the trains here. Since we were in his way, he watched and talked with the others.

We arrived at the bottom of the bag without finding anything. The girl asked us if we had any luck, but we told her, “No”. She spoke to the other man again and then said, “There might be another place.” Happy to stretch out our hope, we followed her and the man to the dumpsters that I had seen earlier. They unlocked the first dumpster and displayed a neatly stacked pile of trash bags. The Swiss were even tidier than I realized. The man pointed to a bag on top and the girl said, “Try this one.” From here, they left and asked us to lock the dumpster when we were done.

It only took a moment of digging in this bag before we found a wilted Eurail pass laying on top. Amazed, I snatched the pass from the soggy pile as we cheered. We quickly cleaned up our mess and ran back to those who helped us. We shared our good fortune with the man and the boy, showing them what a Eurail pass looks like. When we asked about thanking the girl, we were told she already left. That was too bad, but they could tell her later.

It wasn’t until I was drying the pass under the hand dryer in the restroom that I realized how everything had lined up perfectly. If I hadn’t woken up when I did and if we hadn’t caught the bus, we would have missed the girl who helped us. Without her help in translating, we never would have checked that other dumpster. Even if we had figured things out earlier and had gone the night before, we could’ve run into a dead end without her. As if it wasn’t unbelievable enough to travel two hours into a remote corner of Switzerland to find a ticket in the trash, it happened at just the right time.