That line comes from American Pie II, and it's the first thing I thought of after I left the train ticket portal in the Amsterdam airport. As I write this, I am tired. Scratch that, I'm exhausted. I barely slept the two days before I left, anticipating that I would sleep on the plane. Welllll, I didn't. I maybe got a 30 minute nap. Maybe.
And now I'm in Amsterdam. Or, at least, I'm in the plane and train station that's designated Amsterdam. I left off with the last post as I was boarding the plane. My reserved seat was the very last row on the left side of the plane against the window. That's not where I sat. I was one of the last ones to board the plane hoping that I didn't have to sit way in the back. Luckily, the plane was nowhere near full. I sat in the back section, but not nearly all the way to the back. I had two seats to myself, so I was able to sprawl out a little bit.
The plane left on time, right at 3:40. I don't think the plane ever stopped once it backed away from the terminal. We went straight to the runway and took off. No waiting anywhere. The plane ride was fairly uneventful. We landed at 8:20, right on time. Though, truth be told, we definitely could have made it faster. The pilot took a crazy route over St. Louis, then Illinois, then the Great Lakes, then just into Canada and finally out over the Atlantic. The sun sat right before we got out over the ocean and rose again like 3-4 hours later… Still over the Atlantic. It was pretty cool flying into Amsterdam. They have water everywhere. EVERYWHERE. It makes me wonder what Venice is like, because Amsterdam literally has canals all over the place. Fields have multiple "bayous" running through them. They're set up and run across the land so that they look like roads everywhere.
But other than the cool flight in, Amsterdam has not been the best. I picked up my luggage on the carousal and one of the back wheels is missing. (Welcome to Europe!) The continental rep said "That's awfully inconvenient, sir. You're just starting your trip." Thanks for that sir. Yes. Yes is it inconvenient.................... to say the least.
Thennnnn, I got to the ticket counter. For the rail system in Europe, they offer what's called the Eurail Pass. The one I bought allows me 15 days of travel to 21 European countries within a two month time period. So I talk to the lady at the ticket counter, trying to get my train to Paris. The plan was to meet Brad, Kierstyn, and Erica at Gare du Nord train station in Paris at 1:30. Whoops! The train I needed to take was completely booked. So, I had to wait. Really, didn't have to wait that much longer, 11:10, instead of 10:30. But, the difference in arrival times was going to be 3.5 hours late. I saved $100, but I don't know if it was worth it. The stress of possibly not being able to find my friends combined with it being 2:00 in the morning back home/I was tired, was not a friendly combination.
So, to kill time for 2 hours, I walked around the train station, looked at all the shops and sent emails back home and to Kierstyn to let them know how they should attempt to find me. And if there's one thing I noticed in all of that, Amsterdam is EXPENSIVE. Burger King wanted 3.75 Euro for chicken nuggets. That's roughly $5.00 and it wasn't for a value meal. I paid $4.00 for 15 minutes of internet(before the bank fee). Yes, it's a little expensive.
But now for the people. Everybody I've dealt with has been nice. They don't have quite the courtesy of US people, but they are nice. If they're talking to another worker or something and you walk up, they're going to finish their conversation or whatever they're doing, and then get to you. But when they finally do, they're nice and helpful.
Now for the train rides.
I left Amsterdam and traveled to Antwerp station in Belgium. The train ride was 2 hours long, and pretty uneventful. I watched the Dutch countryside for a while and finally fell asleep with my bags in my lap and at my feet.
When I got to the Antwerp station, the train I was supposed to take next was still an hour away. So, I sat at the station and talked to a couple from Florida that was literally backpacking and camping through Europe. They had a tent. They had just finished camping on the side of a lake in Amsterdam and were now headed to Paris for 4-5 days. We hopped on the same train together and headed to Lille, France. My next train (to Paris) was due to leave at 4:00, theirs at 4:30, and I was due to get into Lille at 3:52. We talked for a bit about how impressive the European trains were and how on time they were. If they said arriving at 11:53 and leaving at 11:54, that's what they did. As karma would have it, this train from Antwerp to Lille was late departing and arriving. We arrived in Lille at 4:07, so I had to find the train manager of the next train and get him to let me get on the backpackers' train.
I got on the next train without a problem, but still got to Paris at 5:30 instead of 5:00. Which meant Brad, Kierstyn and Erica had to look for me at Gare du Nord for 45 minutes without any way for me to get in touch with them saying I would be late. The train was one of the highspeed trains you've probably heard about, and it definitely went fast, but I'm not sure how fast. We made it to Paris in right at an hour, but still 30 minutes late.
I got into Paris right at 5:30, praying I would be able to find my group. I was decked out in LSU gear (shirt, bag, and hat), hoping that I would be easily identifiable. Couldn't find them. I walked all over the station. Nothing. Went to a balcony where I stood out and could see everywhere. Still… nothing. Our contingency plan was to head to Gare de l'Est, the train station that would take us on the overnight train to Munich, buy tickets and just (hopefully) meet each other right before boarding the train.
So, I left Gare du Nord, headed to an orientation stand to check out a map, and this crazy girl runs up to me and just stands in my way. Took a second to register, but as it did, overwhelming relief! Kierstyn found me. Thank you God! Goodbye anxiety! - In all seriousness, the odds of us finding each other were very small. The station was huge. There were people everywhere, and it really was overwhelming.
But there they were. They had started looking for me an hour ago, and finally went outside figuring they had a better chance of finding me once I left the station. We were all relieved. From there, we made our way to Paris Est, bought our tickets for Munich, and laid down on our luggage in the train station.
We got a sleeper car from Paris to Munich. It was supposed to be an 11 hour trip (8:20pm - 7:20am), which we were fine with because we wanted the rest. We were all pretty much exhausted by this point. The car itself was very very small. It had 6 beds but we only needed 4 and prayed they didn't stick anyone else in our compartment. Almost as soon as the train started moving, the girls started drinking champagne, Brad started playing video games, and I fell asleep. The train stopped multiple times throughout the night, sometimes for as long as 45 minutes. For the most part, everyone slept right through the stops. Sometimes when the train came to a stop, or was going slowly through a station, it would make this horrible screeching sound. Sometimes that would wake us up, but for the most part, it was a pretty relaxed ride. We all woke up about 5:00. We had gotten a decent little nap, the sun was already up, and our train was supposed to be stopping for good in about 2 hours. So we all started cutting up, making fun of each other, and eventually falling back asleep. And it's a good thing too, because we didn't arrive in Munich until 10:00 am.
I'm not going to lie. It was a hell of a trip to get here. From the time I left on Monday from Lafayette to the time I arrived in Munich, I traveled for a solid 39 hours. I spent 10.5 in the air & 18.5 on a train, with 10 hours of layovers. But I made it, and everything is fine. My next post will be about Munich and I'll try to have that up ASAP.
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I'm posting these late, because it's a circus trying to split one charger with 4 people. So my computer isn't always up and running. Thank God that Brad brought his transformer so our American stuff could work. Otherwise, we'd be out of luck. But I don't get to type as much as I'd like. So a lot of this stuff is written on notepads and stuff and then transferred. So that's why they're often a couple days late. But I am trying to catch up.
This post was written when I was EXTREMELY tired and things just weren't going right. But Munich has been awesome. We ended up cancelling Prague, staying an extra day in Munich, and then heading to Vienna early. Like I said, I'll get the munich stuff up pretty soon. But just know, this trip, so far, has been a blast.
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