The Mishaps of Transportation

Wow. A lot has happened since my last post. Let's recap shall we?

Last time I posted I was in Madrid, Spain, hanging around the airport waiting for my connection. That flight went smoothly, but just as we started our descent I looked at my watch and saw that I had not only missed my train to Frankfurt, but ALL of the trains to Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and other connection cities.

I needed to be in Amsterdam by Monday (today) because that was when my reservations for my hostel started. My original train reservation had me going to Frankfurt, having a seven hour layover, then continuing onto A-dam. So, sitting on the plane I started searching through the EuRail timetable along with my hosteling book to try and find a train/accomidations to spend the night. I found a train to Hamburg (where a train for A-dam was leaving from the next morning) that I MIGHT be able to make depending on whether or not I could find my way to the train station, I still however would have no hosteling accomidations in Hamburg and if I didn't make the train, I didn't have any in Berlin as well.

You can imagine my distress as I stepped off the plane. You wouldn't have known it to look at me, but I was freaking out. I was in a foreign city with only a passible grip on the language. I didn't know anyone in the country, practically the entire continent and I also had no idea where to go or what to do. Ah.... adventure.

My luggage made it with me to Berlin (thankfully) and I set off like a little pack mule through the Tegal airport. I managed to figure out that I needed to go out and get on the bus marked TXL and that would eventually take me to the Berling Hauptbanhof. My packs and I took up an entire two seats on the bus, and I sat nervously awaiting my stop, hoping I would know when it was. Lucky for me it was not only labeled 'Hauptbanhof' on the the bus display, but it was announced as well. Lurching off the bus I made my way through a croud of taxis, bicycles and pedestrians to the grand looking station. The station is a wonder in and of itself. The outside is glass and steel and it's a gigantic building; the covering over the upper tracks looks like a giant airplane hanger, something I've noticed is a reoccuring style for German Hauptbanhofs. Rushing into the station I looked at the boards reading off the times for trains and I noticed something about the times didn't look right. Checking my watch I saw that it wasn't reading the time that was on the board - it was an hour fast. Somewhat cheered by this, because it meant I could definatly make my train, I hurried over to the Eurail Aide desk area and tried in broken German to explain to the lady who spoke no English that I wanted to catch the train for Hamburg so I could get to Amsterdam by train tomorrow morning. She looked at me a little funny and printed out two reservations for me to choose from. Neither were trains to Hamburg, they were instead trains to Amsterdam, via different cites. Sweet!! So, I hung around the Hauptbanoff for about 4 hours untill my 00:35 (12:35am) train. (und, ja, Cathi, ich esse die Eis. Es war SEHR gut)

My train was a little late (surprise, surprise) and when I got on I was exausted. Luckly, I had the entire six seat compartment (think Harry Potter and you've got the right picture of the train compartment) to myself. I put the armrests up and laid across an entire side of seats to get some rest. Keep in mind that up to this point on Monday moring, I had had only four hours of sleep since Saturday, 8am.

Before I fell asleep I ended up meeting the guy in the compartment next to mine and he was overjoyed to find someone who spoke English. His name is Rodrigo and he's from Brazil. We talked for a little bit and found out that both of us were on the same connecting train out of Cologne to Amsterdam. His cell phone was dead so I told him I'd wake him up in the morning when we had to get off the train. I set mine, and drifted off to sleep REALLY hoping that it would go off at the correct time in the morning. I'm a little leery about this phone working all of the time and the conductor would not be warning us about the stops. So, I drifted off to sleep to the sound of the wind soaring past my window at incredible speeds as we raced across Germany.

I slept fitfully, tossing and turning as best I could on the seats, probably getting about four or so hours. It was cold in my compartment and I didn't have a blanket. I was awake before my alarm rang, and got up to ready my packs and prepare to disembark when it went off at 6:40am. I woke Rodrigo at 6:50 and we got off in Cologne. We had breakfast at this little food thing in the Hauptbanhof and I got some overpriced but delicious starbucks coffee. He and I wandered around the Hbf (Hauptbanhof) and outside of it for about an hour and then went to wait on our platform for hour high-speed train to A-dam. Funny story, our platform was track 5, my compartment on our previous train was 5 and my seat was 55. Considering how that's my family's favorite number, it was a pretty cool set of coincidences. We got on the train, whose speed was in excess of 190 mph and both of us fell asleep. The train that picked us up from Cologne had come from Frankfurt, and turned out to be the original train my reservation had been on, funny enough.

On our train I met two Canadian guys who I might get the chance to join up with to go out some night while I'm here in Amsterdam, which would be cool, they were pretty down to earth, cool guys. They had already been through about 15 countries on their two month backpacking tour.

Rodrigo and I parted ways at the trainstation and I made my way to my hostel, The Flying Pig Downtown. My hostel is really cool, has a nice bar and pool room with lots of places to meet people. It's fairly clean and well-kept, if you can get over the pervasive smell of Amsterdam Grass, you'r fine. My room is nice, five bunks, 10 people. The girl below me is traveling alone as well, she's from NY. There were four new guys sleeping in there the last time I went in and I know there is a couple on the bottom full buck in the back of the room, maybe I'll get to meet some of them tonight. The first thing I did after checking into my hostel was SHOWER! I needed one so desperately and it felt SO good. I changed my clothes and went out to wander the city. It started pouring as I walked so I'm now the proud owner of an Amsterdam umbrella. I went and saw the Anne Frank house and had fun hanging out with an English woman who lives in the Netherlands named Sarah and her daughter Phoebe. I shared my umbrella with them in line and they gave me half a peanut butter sandwich. (Yes, Nate, it was terrible, but I got used to it and hey, free food, right?) The House was so amazing and moving, it's hard to believe that I actually got to go to the Secret Annex and see how they lived. I've also walked through the red light district, which is everything people said it was and a lot more. I think I'm going to head back to my hostle now and relax in the common room. So, now you're up to date! I leave Wednesday for London!

Love to all at home!

p.s. I can't check the spelling here, so please, forgive mistakes!