On The Road To Nowhere..... and Very Slowly.

1st Class lounge, Amsterdam Centraal
Train Station

(Written on October 13... but posted October 14)

We started out last night well.  We stayed in the 1st Class lounge at Amsterdam train station (lovely),  and we caught our City Nights sleeper train which was on time.  The porter, who seems very distracted, and speaks perhaps less English than I thought he did, was not very helpful in showing us how to use the things in our room.  He did show us the reading light (about a 15 watt bulb), and how to work the air conditioning.   He didn’t bother to tell us how to turn the water on in the sink, and it wasn’t until the next morning that Becky figured it out. 

Train sleeper with seats up,
Amsterdam to Munich

The beds are quite firm, and the train is extremely rough.  I am rather amazed because I have slept on trains in the past, and they sort of relax you and lull you to sleep.  This shook you awake, and there was really no lulling.  We each fell asleep easily enough, but the trick this time was staying asleep.  There were several times during the night that I thought we were actually making a 90 degree turn (which I know is not possible), and wasn’t sure we weren’t going in a big circle.  The train would speed up rapidly, and then come to a very quick stop. 

(Whoo-hoo….. train moving….more about that in the next paragraph)

The porter told us that a buzzer would go on an hour before we reached Munich, and that they would then bring around breakfast and coffee. We have been concerned because we have less than 10 minutes to transfer trains there.  He said it wasn’t a problem, that there were trains every 30 minutes from Munich to Vienna, but he didn’t know if we had to get another ticket, or if we could use the one we had. 

 I had set the alarm on my phone for 0630 to be sure we got up, but by the time the alarm rang, I realized we had been sitting still for a long time.  This had happened several times during the night, so I thought it was just another stop, and they were waiting for something.  Well, they were. 

I stepped outside the train (in the dark) to talk to two other train employees, since I couldn’t find our porter, but neither of them spoke any English, Spanish, or Italian.  I sort of figured out, though since the train wasn’t moving, it was now 0645, and no one seemed in any hurry to get back on the train, that we were stopped for some other reason other than a regular train stop. 

Finally, I spoke to a woman who was talking to them in German, and in English she told me we were at this time 3 hours late, and would be probably 5 hours late getting into Munich because “a lock was broken”.  Becky and I started to convert our bunks into seating.  We had most of it figured out, and then caught the porter in a moment when he was a little less distracted, and he finished putting the seats up.  

Now back to “Whoo-hoo, we are moving.” It is now 0750 and it looks like we are on our way.  I am still not sure where we are, but at least we are going in the right direction.  I think.   Well, we will get to see a little more of Germany now that it is daytime, and we are sitting up in our little compartment, with 3-5 hours of “free” train time at our disposal.

The other good news is that since we still have the 1500 Munich to Vienna ticket from our earlier purchase, and we were unable to convince Raileurope to take them back, we do have a reservation on  the 1500 train… if we get to Munich by then.   More later…. Oh, and perhaps I need to learn just a little more German than Bitte and Danke.

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1318:   We are now sitting in our first class train to Vienna.  We haven’t started moving, yet, but I do believe we are at least on the right train.  Very nice seats, lots of leg room.  We were indeed five hours late getting in, but the transfer of tickets went fairly well.  We now have a four hour ride through Germany and part of Austria to get to Vienna.  We will be getting in about six hours later than we had originally planned, but still earlier than the day tickets we had purchased before (see prior post).  Now if I can get a cup of coffee, all will be pretty right with the world.