So once upon a time when I was 10 years old, I was gifted my first Taylor Swift CD for Christmas. I listened to that thing all the time. It became my first and my forever favorite Taylor Swift album. Loving it was RED! Soon I was going to my first Taylor Swift concert during the Red tour at the Excel Energy Center in St.Paul. Ed Sheeran opened. Wow was 2013 a good year.
Flash forward a couple years and we get 1989, the best album to ever be made! I turn into a full blown Taylor Swift fan listening to all the old albums too. I get to see Taylor Swift again, this time wearing my red lipstick as an 8th grader.
Another few years past in which the Kanye scandal happens. I was a fan the entire time while others left the fandom and I am all over it when we get Reputation. I was slightly terrified by Look What You Made Me Do but the rest of the album was relatable given some of the things I was going through in 10th grade. The next summer I get to see Taylor Swift for a third time, but this time at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Its bigger and better!
A few years more pass and I am going into my senior year of high school listening to my other favorite album, Lover. Cruel Summer never gets old. I watch the Miss Americana documentary and Lover live from Paris. Suddenly the world is in lockdown. Taylor Swift releases Folklore and Evermore and well I lost interest in Taylor a little bit. I am not a folk fan and preferred my electro pop at the time. Still Folklore reminds me of my freshman year of college.
Suddenly we are getting rereleases. Fearless and then Red Taylor’s Version while I am studying abroad in Ireland, so now my favorite album will always remind me of my favorite time in my life. Another year later we get Midnights, so good right? Who can’t relate to Antihero? I am obsessed once again and dying to go to the Eras Tour. Three shows in Minneapolis and I couldn’t get a ticket for any. I still remember that weekend when I saw everyone going to the Eras Tour and I had to settle for listening to Taylor Swift music in a restaurant then going out to a bar and seeing everyone’s Era Tour outfits after the show. It was really depressing. Especially seeing some people go multiple nights when I didn’t get to go at all. That summer was defined by Speak Now TV nevertheless. When Emma Falls in Love was written about me obviously.
Another couple months and I am Au Pairing in Mallorca and we get 1989 TV. I love that my favorite albums were released at times when I was abroad. Another few months pass and we all think we are getting Reputation TV. Nope just Tortured Poets Department. I hesitated with this one at first, but now it is one of my favorites and will always remind me of taking trains throughout Europe during my big European trip. It was during this trip that I was given the opportunity of a lifetime: to come back to Germany in the Summer to see the Eras Tour. Of course I had to! My whole life was leading up to this! I had to see a show that has every single one of Taylor’s greatest songs. I played it like it was something I had to think about. Obviously I didn’t really need to think about it. I had to go. And that brings us up to the point of this story time.
I booked a Delta flight to Frankfurt, Germany for the end of July. My friend Zoë in Stuttgart had an extra ticket to see Taylor Swift after one of her friends pulled out. I spent the summer coming up my Eras Tour outfit. It was a constant battle between Red, Lover, and Midnights. I ended up going with Lover because it had the best summer vibe. I browsed the internet forever. I finally settled on a pink sequins top and lover glasses from amazon and a pink skirt from Cider along with some purple butterfly clips.
I was so excited! I packed my suitcase and made a TikTok of my journey from Moose Lake, MN to Munich, Germany. I had planned to arrive the day before the concert since that was the cheapest flight. Sadly this was about a week after the cyberattacks on Delta’s system, so things were still not running as smoothly as usual. There ended up being a delay in my first flight that would make me miss my connecting flight so I was rebooked with a connection in Amsterdam. This meant I would be changing airlines in Amsterdam to KLM. I didn’t think much of it because I have had connections in the Netherlands before. Somehow though my luggage never made it on that second plane. My suitcase was stuck in the Netherlands that day, along with my Eras Tour outfit.
I was so upset with myself. I knew as soon as I didn’t see my luggage on the carousel that this wasn’t going to be good. The workers at the help desk were also very unhelpful. I have never been talked to as rudely as I had been by the Delta helper. I got in line for Delta since I had a Delta ticket and the KLM line was really long. She just sat there and I waited for her to get off the phone patiently and then after a while she very rudely told me to get into the KLM line which was a lot longer now. I know that these people have a job I will never understand, but I also know customer service in any position, such as this, is very important and there were more polite ways to tell me if I was in the wrong. I was growing frustrated because the line was moving so slowly with the one person trying to help all of these people on this flight who did not get their luggage. I was going to miss my train to Stuttgart.
It was finely my turn and while this guy was much nicer and more understanding he still wasn’t helpful. He could not tell me where my luggage was and when I would get it. I told him I already was missing my train so I would stay at the airport if there was any chance my luggage was going to come on one of the other flights later that day. He insisted I take the train. I insisted I needed my luggage. How do I express to someone I need my luggage because it has my Eras Tour outfit. I didn’t want to sound privileged and childish, so all that came out was that I really needed my luggage. That’s when Delta lady butted in and said sharply that everyone needs their luggage. Thanks, I get that, but try to have some empathy for someone that’s just been traveling for over 12 hours, hardly slept, and just found out she doesn’t have any of her stuff and she is going to the concert she has been waiting her entire life to see the next day without any of it.
Eventually I just let it go and tried to get a train. In Germany you can get your ticket stamped to take the next train in the case of a connection where a delay in the first train causes you to miss the next. That was not my case but I was going to try. Maybe THEY’D have empathy for someone who just lost their luggage and spent an hour waiting in line to find out that no one knows where it is and your concert outfit is gone. The women working the desk was really nice and she told me usually this stamp is for connections, but she did it anyway so I could take the next train. I was so grateful! She was the first good thing to happen on this trip.
As I waited for the next train I basically bought a pretzel at the train station and cried as I called my mom. All of my stuff was gone. Everything! I usually only pack essentials for the plane ride in my backpack, because I never had lost my luggage before. (This has since changed.) Usually I just have whatever I need for the flight and then a couple extra pairs of underwear and a t-shirt.
After a 2 hour train ride of feeling completely lost without my luggage I was in Stuttgart. Zoë met me at the train station and I was completely exhausted, but I had to go shopping because I had next to nothing. I needed a toothbrush, makeup (red lipstick of course), clothes to last me a day or two, and a new Eras Tour outfit. The first few things were easy. It was finding a new concert outfit that was so difficult. I already struggled in the first place but now I was limited to the options at the Stuttgart shopping center. Don’t get my wrong, I love clothing in Europe. I love getting stuff from H&M and Primark when I am in Europe. The hard part was the style in Germany at the time included very bland colors.
We finally found a store that had a pretty open knitted sparkly pink top on sale and I snatched it up. It was a start! I decided it would be enough pink so I got a pair of white shorts and a white tank from H&M and called it good. I no longer had my lover glasses and butterfly clips so my accessories were lacking, but I would just make a lot of friendship bracelets to make up for it.
The next day there was still no news of my luggage, so I had to make peace with the fact I would not have my stuff I had planned to use or wear. I ended up making nine friendships bracelets that morning, one for every era. I already had two that I made for my favorite albums before arriving. As I was spending time with my friend listening to Taylor’s music, making friendship bracelets, and getting ready I realized that the perfect outfit and makeup didn’t matter. This was an experience of people, not stuff. I would make so many memories regardless of how I showed up, so that is the attitude I took to the concert. Who really cares about the instagram posts and I how I would look. Those people weren’t at the concert. I started to appreciate the experience for what it was and not for my expectations.
We drove two and a half hours to Munich and you could tell we all were so excited in the car. We parked outside the city and took the train in (what a smart way to avoid traffic!) The train was full of Swifties. As we got closer there were more and more fans going to the show. Every form of public transportation was completely full of fans who were not afraid to squeeze in and get close.
We eventually made it to Olympic Park, which is now the coolest place I have ever seen a concert! Outdoor venues are so fun because you get to see the sunset while listening to your favorite songs. The thing that made this specific venue so unique is the hill located in Olympic Park that allows bystanders to see into the stadium and listen to the music. The Munich shows ended up going viral for this because there were 40,000 fans watching the concert from that hill and let me tell you Taylor loved it!
My only complaint about the stadium was the bathrooms. I did not get to go before the concert because the lines were so long. We had gotten merch, found our spots, and watched the end of Paramore before we decided we needed to fill up our water bottles and use the restroom before the show. Neither happened because as we were waiting in line, we heard the countdown and ran back to our spots.
I had an interesting encounter before the show while we were waiting for the restroom though. Zoë had a friend there that we talked to for a bit and I remember her asking me, “Don’t you have Taylor Swift in America?” That made me uncomfortable because my situation appeared exactly how I thought it would. I was the American that just had to buy tickets in Europe which meant there were less for the Europeans who don’t have as many opportunities to see Taylor Swift as we do. I just told her I was unable to get tickets for the show, which was true, and hoped that made me seem more genuine and less like a greedy American that just had to see the show in Europe too. Also I was going with people from Germany who invited me so I really hoped that made the situation seem better as well.
We returned to our seats and the show was the best of my entire life! I sang every song word for word. There were a few traditions I was unfamiliar with that either started in Europe or I had never noticed on TikTok before like the hearts for Lover and the balloons for Willow. There were a few chants I didn’t know but most I did. You know I was all over “1-2-3- lets go bitch!” And then were was the fact I got to see 22 performed while being 22. Looking back at things I think that moment made the fact I didn’t get to see the show in Minnesota ok. Its almost like it was meant to be this way, because that has been my favorite song since 10 years old. Then I got to be 22 and singing along to the song live. That’s pretty special. Little me could never have guessed that would happen.
The surprise songs were not my favorite though. We were Munich night 2 and looking at the songs from the night before I think I would have rather have been at night 1, but thats ok because I got to hear I Don’t Want To Live Forever.
After the show we walked out of the stadium with all the other Swifties. There was a feeling of disappointment with it being over, but there was a certain calmness about leaving with everyone else who was feeling that exact same way. We all just had a life changing experience and now we were back to reality in Germany.
We made it to the train station where there was a crowd of fans trying to get on. They had special workers there monitoring the crowd for the event that evening. There was a guy with a mega phone saying a bunch of stuff in German that I didn’t understand but I did know he was talking about the show and he was funny. Then all of the sudden the crowd would start singing a Taylor Swift song, like You Belong With Me or Love Story. It was fun that even though the show was over, the music, the unity, and the feeling wasn’t. It was still the Eras Tour concert night.
Eventually we got on the train and got back to the parking lot which is when the craziest thing happened. One of my friendship bracelets broke. It was my Speak Now bracelet with When Emma Falls in Love written on it. How ironic. What could it mean?
And like that we were driving back to Stuttgart and the night was over. I was wide awake even though we didn’t get back until 3 am. It was probably due to the time difference. And the next day it was like it never happened. My only proof it did were my videos and the fact that I now had a Change bracelet in place of The One which I traded at the show.
I would eventually get my luggage. It came two days after the concert. I had to do a bit more shopping to make it until then, which was fun now that I was no longer under the stress of only a few hours of sleep and a concert the next day. Thankfully I had travel insurance for the trip which paid for all the things I bought because my luggage arrived late, which means in a way I kind of got free clothes. It even covered the stuff I bought for the concert.
Looking back at the show I don’t have any negative feelings of “I wish I had my outfit”. It was an amazing experience that will stay with me forever and the fact that this is the only time I have ever lost my luggage seems kind of funny now. Like what are the chances?! But that is just how the world works sometimes. You can dwell on the disappointment for a bit, but then you have to move on and make the best of it. And that is what I did! But I will now always keep anything I absolutely need in my carry on when traveling. There is your travel tip for the day. Pack everything you might need the next day or two in your carry on.
That was my story time of my experience traveling to Munich for the Eras Tour. Check out more of my posts for Germany by clicking on the Germany tag and look out for more Germany content including where to visit in Baden-Württemburg and my time in Munich.
Disclaimer: I know that there are worse problems in the world than losing your luggage and not having a specific outfit for a concert. I realize there are bigger things and once I got a full night of sleep that became very clear. I am definitely very lucky and privileged to be able to travel to another country and on top of that see a Taylor Swift concert. We just all have those times where little inconveniences feel like the end of the world. Also I know that the airport workers were under a lot of stress and I could have interpreted that stress as rudeness. It is always important to remember cultural differences that play into interactions and how we perceive others while traveling in foreign countries.
The Journal of Wanderlust 