It began with a peaceful gathering at our place to eat some delicious Chocolate-Cherry cake and having fun watching “Big Bang Theory”. We then wanted to try the Michaelibad as part of our traditional swim on Sunday, but I thought the train would go 21:18 not 21:16 so we missed it and took the next one to Max-Weber-Platz. There we would have to wait for 8 minutes so I suggested using DriveNow, the next Mini Cooper D was just 150 meters away – this is were the GTA part began. We picked the car, got in and rushed to the Michaelibad – definitely not exceeding the speed limit, but making full use of the car’s acceleration. After a few minutes I noticed some blinking light in the rear mirror and read “STOP POLICE”. I sighed, thought about what I could’ve done wrong and stopped. A friendly policewomen approached us and asked for my license and our destination. She told us we we’re heading in the wrong direction (which turned out to be wrong) and asked whether I’d taken any drugs. She asked over and over again whether I could pass a urine test (“it would reveal consumptions of a few weeks past…”) and we started getting annoyed – since every minute is worth 0.29 € you can’t like pointless conversations with (even though friendly) the police. When she let us go we noticed that we were driving without light. I was used to stop worrying about light, because all Drive-Now cars are equipped with light automatic. I didn’t consider the possibility to switch it off, though. Why didn’t the police say anything about driving without light? I can barely believe they didn’t notice…
We reached the Michaelibad about 10 minutes later than we would have taking the next train and I hit “stop booking” at the screen. It said parking there would be 11 point something €, because we were out of the city zone – of course it can’t be this easy. So I let my friends out and drove west to park in the first parking spot which *was* in the city zone. I left the car at about 21:55 and sprinted around without much orientation, looking for a suitable bus or tram stop, but didn’t find one. My goal would now be to reach Michaelibad again before they close and swim at least 100 meters. So I finally ran to Leuchtenbergring, one minute wait, one station to Ostbahnhof, arrived 21:14, took the U5 at 21:19 and arrived 22:26 (90 seconds late) at the subway station Michaelibad.
I ran to the entry, but nobody was at the cashier’s desk. When I asked an attendant how I could get in and he said it was too late. About to give up I looked around and spotted a machine labeled “tickets”. I feeded it properly and managed to get in at 22:30 (definitely felt a lot better than winning in a computer game), so I was in the water at about 22:35 and still managed to swim 250m and then met the others in the outdoor pool – target exceeded by 250% 😉
Who needs computer games when reality is this thrilling – if you just get the train departure time wrong by two minutes 😉