The coach returning from Frankfurt pulled into the loading bay at Hahn Airport at 9:50 PM, ten minutes before the scheduled 10 PM shuttle to the Schwerbach Farm hostel. At this point I still hadn't made contact with the hostel, though, since I didn't want to waste any of the limited time I had in Frankfurt sitting in an internet cafe trying to reach them (for clarification, the several hours I spent reading and napping on the park bench that day wasn't wasted time).
I got off the bus and walked the full length of the Arrivals area, keeping an eye out for the hostel shuttle. From my pacing around the airport and loading areas the night before, I now had a familiarity with the layout of the terminal and knew where to stand so that the shuttle wouldn't be able to sneak past me this time.
After 40-50 minutes of waiting in the cold this time without spotting the shuttle, I went inside to try to call again. By this time I still hadn't discovered the secret extra digit required to dial a local number, so my repeated attempts at the payphone were still unsuccessful. Fortunately there were still a few people working in some of the ticket booths, so I went around asking for assistance. The first few people I approached were useless, including those at the Ryanair ticket booth. Finally I found a no-nonsense gal with lots of tattoos and piercings sitting in some office that would turn out to be the real problem solver. I explained my situation, and without saying anything to me, she grabbed the phone and got right on the line with somebody at the hostel and rattled off something in German, which had the tone of, "Come pick this guy up, for cryin' out loud, I'm tired of him loitering around the terminal!" She hung up and said, "they'll be out front to pick you up in 15 minutes in a blue Volkswagen bus." If only this person would have been around the night before...
After that, the pick-up and drive to the hostel went fine. The lady in the VW bus apologized for the miscommunication and explained that they always wait for a call confirming an arrival in order to avoid making unnecessary trips to the airport. My mistake was assuming that there would be others from my flight/bus making the same trip who would have made that call. I ended up being one of the only people staying in the hostel that weekend. The nice part was that I had an 8-bed room to myself, and would be able to get some sleep before tackling the next day.
The next day, Monday, was a company holiday, so I scheduled my flight back to Glasgow for around 8 PM in the evening. That gave me a full day to explore somewhere new from the hub of Hahn Airport. The catch was that the hostel shuttle wouldn't be making a trip to the airport until later than I wanted to go. When I told the Volkswagen bus lady that I'd just walk to the airport from Schwerbach, she gave me a strange look and said, "Are you sure?!" She recommended they call a taxi for me. Thing was, since I abandoned my initial walk that first night from the airport to Schwerbach, there was still an unfulfilled challenge I wanted to complete. Besides, this time I'd be walking in daylight, and would have a good opportunity to see some of the German countryside.
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