Wrapping up our holiday to East Frisia, Ludovica was going to travel with us on the same buses and trains.

Well, at least until Bremen Central Station where she would leave us to catch a plane to bring her home to Italy.

The evening before, when we were sitting together to have a beer at the “Santa Maria” restaurant, she had noticed some stray cats and was wondering whether they would get food from the restaurant.

And while Harry and I were already waiting at the bus stop, Ludovica made sure the stray cats would get some food that she had bought at the small Dornumersiel supermarket the evening before. Is she lovely or what? 🙂

The trip home would not be as relaxing as we had hoped for. Usually we would go to Norden by bus, then hop on another bus to Norddeich where we would get on the train that would bring us all the way to Hanover.

Well, not so this time. Deutsche Bahn found it appropriate to work on the tracks between Emden and Leer on a Saturday of all days, traditionally the day of arrival and departure of tourists in East Frisia.

We had to get on our train in Norden, then catch an overcrowded replacement bus to bring us from Emden to Leer, and then hurry to catch the train to Hanover. It was quite an ordeal to get me and my chair on the bus and off again, believe me!

On the bus, my husband and Ludovica were sitting quite some rows of seats away from me and I wasn’t really feeling comfortable with all those people around looking at me. Harry didn’t like to leave me unattended, either, and eventually chose to give up his seat and keep standing next to me.

Unfortunately (or not), there are no photos of Harry and me on that replacement bus. It wasn’t nice. Don’t get me wrong, nothing bad happened on the bus and we also didn’t contract CoVid-19 among the crowd. Still, we could have well done without that experience.

Oh yes, and then there was that one conductor on the train who questioned my right to travel with the “Deutschlandticket” (a monthly 49-EUR flat-rate ticket for local passenger transport in all of Germany) because, surely, she said, I had no identification card.

But I do have an ID, mind you, which we presented to her so she would leave us alone. Plus, my husband would have been able to show her a letter from Deutsche Bahn allowing him to travel with me by rail, harhar!

Well, and then we arrived in Bremen where Ludovica had to leave us. 😢 But we agreed we’d stay in touch and should she ever come to Hanover, we would surely meet again. 🙂

Once she was gone, I said to Harry that I thought we should have kept her. She was only the second human being to ever hug me after all. But Harry said our flat was way too small for all of us, anyway. 😉

About two hours later, we arrived at Hanover Central Station where we hopped on a tram that brought us home in the afternoon. We were glad when, in the evening, we got word from Ludovica that she had arrived home save and sound.

We will surely be back to East Frisia next year. Frankly, we would love to move there permanently and Harry has already started looking for a wheelchair-accessible apartment not too far from the coastline. But it’s not easy and we’ll have to be patient…