A few things I forgot to mention about the previous portions of the trip: the minute we landed in Frankfurt there was an amazing rainbow. AMAZING! Secondly, there was also public transportation strike in Berlin. No trains. No busses. A lot of walking and looking for crazy German taxi drivers.
After the solemn Paris tour, I drove overnight back to Frankfurt, stopping once for an hour near the Luxembourg border for a quick nap. And if the ending of this vacation could not get any worse, my boyfriend AGAIN flips out (like the worst I have seen in any man in my life) for, again, what seemed to me to be completely irrational. I asked, while attempting to find a gas station, if we were turning left to find a station or left to go back to the rental car location, essentially, giving up finding an open location at 4 a.m. He completely snapped. I had to pull over to the side of the road because I was scared and shaking. And when I tried to calm him down, he was being even MORE completely crazy (and immature) by not assisting me with the GPS system to find our way back. OK, I don’t get all batty or flustered when I’m lost — I find it to be another part of an adventure yet to come. I hate to even say this, but at one point, I thought he was going to hit me (he didn’t). To this day, I replay that incident in my mind, and I cannot vilify his actions. He just lost it. For no reason. It’s a scary and depressing mood changer when somebody is that emotionally unstable. I got the kitchen sink thrown at me that day, in that car. And it was not a good day for our relationship.
We end up parking on a side street to nap and wait for a station to open. He leaves the car and disappears for who-knows-how long. Again, he thought it to be a GOOD thing to LEAVE ME IN A CAR BY MYSELF IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.
And then, at 6 a.m. when the rental car location opens, everything goes from bad to worse. The attendants find a paint scratch on the front bumper, and I have to file a claim with my travel insurance (thank GOD for the boyfriend at least thinking of these things, while it didn’t do much to curb any annoying or irritated emotions). He comes into the rental office, not knowing what’s going on, and starts repeating everything I have already told the attendants. I HATE it when a guy jumps in and takes the place as if you do not know what the fuck you were doing. Up until now, I was sad, but now I was pissed and humiliated because my boyfriend (suddenly) felt as though he needed to come to my rescue. Like, where were you in Brussels when you were about to LEAVE ME ON A STREET CORNER?
When I called the insurance company, they told me TO CALL BACK during normal U.S. business hours to start a claim. Our flight was leaving in less than two hours! I urge the telephone operator to do SOMETHING, as we are in Germany and wouldn’t be in the country by the time the phone lines open. She starts a half-assed claim, so we could at least drop off the car, but it’s another thing I have to deal with further upon my arrival back to the States.
When we arrived at the airport, I pondered my relationship in silence at the concourse bar (and practiced my German skills again with the bartender). The boyfriend asks me if I was going to break up with him, and I told him I didn’t know yet. I was exhausted by the trip, the driving, the boredom, the silence… and the decision. Best behaviors are supposed to happen on vacation, and I feel as though I got dumped on by a maniacal date planner that ruined the spontaneity of the entire thing.
Truth be told, this wasn’t the breaking point, but a learning experience for both of us. We (finally) kissed and made up back home in the kitchen, ironically enough, where I had made my home with him. And together we proceeded to take things to the next level…
*Note: I could never get that incident out of my mind. After the trip, my mood and demeanor took a nose dive. Even though he was essentially the “break-or” and I was the “break-ee,” the depression and boredom I felt never left until it was finally over. I just could never muster the confidence and balls to do it myself.
