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I met Gunter on a cold, wet and unforgettable evening in September. I had planned to fly to Vienna and take a bus to Prague for a conference. Due to a big storm, my flight had been delayed by an hour and a half. l touched down in Vienna just 30 minutes before the departure of the last bus to Prague. The moment I got off the plane, I ran like crazy through the airport building and jumped into the first taxi on the rank without a second thought. That was when I met Gunter. I told him where I was going, but he said he hadn’t heard of the bus station. I thought my pronunciation was the problem, so I explained again more slowly, but he still looked confused. When I was about to give up, Gunter fished out his little phone and rang up a friend. After a heated discussion that lasted for what seemed like a century, Gunter put his phone down and started the car. Finally, with just two minutes to spare we rolled into the bus station. Thankfully, there was a long queue (队列) still waiting to board the bus. Gunter parked the taxi behind the bus, turned around, and looked at me with a big smile on his face. “We made it,” he said. Just then I realised that I had zero cash in my wallet. I flashed him an apologetic smile as I pulled out my Portuguese bankcard. He tried it several times, but the card machine just did not play along. A feeling of helplessness washed over me as I saw the bus queue thinning out. At this moment, Gunter pointed towards the waiting hall of the bus station. There, at the entrance, was a cash machine. I jumped out of the car, made a mad run for the machine, and popped my card in, only to read the message: “Out of order. Sorry.”