Journeying

Righto, so Thursday night was the farewell dinner for uni. I had decided earlier to catch a taxi with my luggage to the hauptbahnhof, leave it in a locker, then go to the party. Somehow I’ve managed to collect 20 kilos of stuff, so even with my 30 kilos of Emirates checked baggage allowance, I have a feeling I’m a couple of kilos over. Oops. I couldn’t believe how much crap I have, I had to go out and buy an extra duffel bag, which is what I’m living out of for the next week and will be my hand luggage. The party was nice, there was food and we all got our grades and a little booklet. I passed! Huzzah! I got two B’s, which get translated to ungraded passes back home :(. The party ended quite early, at about 8:30pm, so I still had five hours to hang out until my train. A few of us went to Starbucks for hot drinks, and I discovered a love for black tea and honey. Supposedly it’s good for my cold, although it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference. Most of the group had gone out the night before to party in Stuttgart for the last time. There’s no night buses on weeknights, so most of them had stayed out until 5am, when the buses start in the morning. As a result, most people were exhausted and didn’t want to stay out with me. I ended up passing the time by going to Natania’s room, which was relatively close, and keeping her company while she packed.

Night trains are not comfortable. At least not in second class, which has carriages of six seats, with the seats facing each other so you can’t stretch out your legs, and the seats don’t recline at all. The train was one of those weird ones that splits at some point during the journey, so I had to drag my 40 kilos of stuff along the platform, past all these carriages that said they were going to Amsterdam, to get to the ones that were going to Paris. A nice lady helped me by carrying my duffel bag which kept falling off the top of my suitcase, then another girl helped me drag my luggage onto the train and into my carriage. There was already a guy in my carriage, and then we were joined by a young couple that kept being all gross and kissing and stuff. The first guy was British and we hit it off straight away. His name was John, and I spent a good hour or so chatting away to him telling him all sorts of stories. Mister Nathan has some idea of the delirious overtired chatty me :P It was just like the drive to balingup all over again, except it was a train in Europe and I was baring my soul to a perfect stranger :P After a while we decided it was time to sleep, and John pointed out that I had two free seats next to me. The gross couple were next to him so he had to sit up, but I got to lie down! It wasn’t very comfortable, but it was better than sitting. Also, I had some very attractive nose blowing moments. We all dozed sporadically, me and John started chatting again at some time around 4am, then we went back to sleep until about 8am. My stories paid off, because John felt that I had entertained him so much during the long tedious train journey that he decided to help me drag my stuff to Paris Nord and find the mysterious lockers I had heard about on the internet :D He was also catching the Eurostar to London, just at a later time to me.

Our train arrived at Paris Est, and the Eurostar leaves from Paris Nord, as does my train to Amsterdam. The two stations are about ten minutes walking distance, which is massive when you have 40 kilos of luggage. I would’ve caught a taxi, but John told me not to waste my money. The walk was still pretty uncomfortable, but we made it there in the end. We wandered around a bit looking for lockers without much success, before deciding to ask at information. John left me there with my stuff and said he’d go have a look around, and I kinda thought that would be the last I saw of him, because I would’ve had enough of dragging around some strange girl’s luggage by now. But he came back with a huge grin on his face because he had found the lockers! I had to go through an epic security check, but it was worth every cent it cost to leave behind 30 kilos of stuff. It ends up being 27.50 euros, which is very reasonable for a week :)

Once we’d done that, John took me to the Eurostar ticket place where I printed out my tickets and filled in my little emigration form, then we went through customs. Apparently the UK isn’t part of whatever EU agreement Germany and France and Austria are part of, and they actually check your passport and have customs and stuff. The first checkpoint is the French customs, where they look at you in their rude French way and stamp your passport, then because clearly the French can’t do it right, directly behind is the British customs point. The guy at the desk asked in his very serious customs official voice how long I’d be in England, and what I intended to do during my stay. I told him I’d be dressed up in medieval clothes flouncing around in a castle all weekend, and he seemed quite interested in the whole affair, asking me questions about the SCA and stuff, but all in his very serious customs official voice. It was rather bizarre.

By this time I only had about half an hour to go until the train left, so John and I had coffee. It was crap. He seemed absolutely baffled by the idea that it’s possible to make coffee sweet and not bitter, just in the way you extract the shot and texture the milk. He very much enjoyed his bitter coffee, but I was not happy with mine at all. The guy that made it didn’t even tamp the grinds down. I am disappoint, Paris.

Then it was time to say goodbye to John, who really was a godsend. There’s no way I would have been able to find my way to the train station and found the lockers, or known to check in for the Eurostar at least 45 minutes early. The train was pretty uneventful. I think I’ve somehow trained my body to fall asleep in moving vehicles. It’s actually relatively comfortable now as well, I’ve figured out how to put my head so there’s the least amount of pain in my neck and stuff like that.

When we got to London I found my way across the road to King’s Cross and bought myself a ticket to Ely, where I was being picked up for the SCA event in the castle. King’s Cross is a dumb place. You get your ticket, then you have to stand in front of the huge board that displays the trains and times, and wait until they announce which platform your train is on. They generally do this just before the train leaves, so you have to rush to the platform. Once again, I managed to be on the train with the furtherest away platform. But I made it and found a seat, promptly dozing off as soon as the train moved.

I had an awful time in Ely, I arrived at 2:45pm, and my lift finished work at 3pm. She said it would take at least half an hour for her to get to the train station, and I could wait in the Tesco. She would call me when she got there and I could come outside. Well, I saw a sausage roll in the train station, and nearly died because all I’ve felt like since I got here was some warm pastry like a sausage roll or meat pie, and they don’t have either in Germany. Anyway, I ate the sausage roll, then wandered over to the Tesco to stock up on tissues for my epic boogers. Around then I checked my phone and realised I had no reception. I’d had reception in London, just not out here in Ely. I thought to be safe I’d sit outside the Tesco and wait for my lift. I sat there until 4pm, nearly an hour in the cold, and I felt awful. I was convinced that somehow she had missed me, and finding me out of contact had gone on to the event without me. I tried calling from a payphone in the Tesco, but even though I could hear her, she couldn’t hear me. Eventually I went back across to the train station and tried the payphone there, and I found her. Thank goodness. Then came our epic six hour drive of doom. We had to pick up someone else, then drive to Wales. I think, and the other person we gave a lift to thinks we went the long way around to everywhere. We were following a really old TomTom with a Yoda voice, which got very irritating after a while. I think I dozed most of the way, because I was tired and couldn’t stay awake in the comfy moving vehicle. Eventually we got to Wales, and it started drizzling just as we crossed the border. Then we arrived at the castle! Holy crap a real life castle! It was all lit up with lights and stuff, and looked very cool. It was the weirdest experience driving into a castle, across the drawbridge and stuff. The gate was just wide enough for a van, which is very nice of the medieval people to build it that way :P

I shall update about the event in detail in my next post :)