Monday, 11 January 2010

Hassleholm and Back to England

It reminded me of Union, SC. Mostly residential with a very small downtown and one little main street. It was very cute, but it took me about 20 minutes to see it all. But since I was only there for two nights, it wasn’t a huge deal. Now I shall start the saga of my homeward journey.
This first part is completely my fault. I was later checking out of the hotel than I should have been and missed the train to Malmo I had been planning on taking, which meant I missed the train to Copenhagen, which meant I (thought) I missed the train to Hamburg. I later realized that the 12:45 train that had been delayed was in fact my train, but Hamburg wasn’t its final destination. Bright side: It left about 20 seconds after I got to Copenhagen so I still would have missed it.

I did get tickets to Paris that were actually better than what I originally had and would get me there about an hour earlier with about 3 fewer trains. My first train also wasn’t leaving for about 5 hours. So I went to Hard Rock for lunch (yes, Dad, that was me who texted you ridiculously early in the morning. After all, if it is lunch time where I am it must be lunch time everywhere! This is also why you will soon discover that I left a message on your office answering machine at 6:50am your time) and then back to Malmo. Yes! Back to Malmo for about half an hour in order to send some postcards. Why you ask? Because! I was actually kind of upset that I wouldn’t have the postmark from Sweden on the postcards I sent to my mom because in the rush to get to Copenhagen I hadn’t had time to post them. But since I had the time with my new tix, I decided to take the opportunity. When I got back to Copenhagen I still had a couple of hours to kill so I sat in a café with some hot chocolate.

Random tangent: The whole grubby, smelly traveler look must suit me because two guys were hitting on me (not forcefully, thank goodness) today. One on my second train to Copenhagen and one in the café. The café guy was actually pretty cute.

Anyway, the time comes for my train and…the leg to Hamburg is cancelled because the ferry can’t cross in the weather they’re having. !!! At this point I’m counting down the hours until my flight leaves at 2:30pm Monday. I talk to a lady who is helping people in my situation and she points me in the direction of a train that goes to Germany but not by way of ferry. So I sit for 40 minutes in the cold station on the platform when there is the announcement that people on this train need reservations. O.o So I hurry up and quickly get a (free!!!) ticket for this train to Cologne. I rush back down and what do you know, they’ve changed the platform. At this point I have about 3 minutes until it leaves. Fortunately the platform they changed it to was the one connected to the platform I had been expecting so I was still in the right place, just, as it turns out, at the wrong end of the train. *sigh* I ran my little heart out to get to my carriage, but I made it! And interrupted a kissing couple because I needed to get on. Oh well. And I was on the train when it started moving, but also when it stopped a few hours later. For about 40 minutes. For no reason I could see. I was so relieved when it started moving again! After that I was joined in my compartment by a woman and her teenage kids for a couple hours until they got back off. The woman kind of looked like an older Audrey Tatou. So I’m all curled up, napping across three seats, when I realize that again, the train isn’t moving. I wait and wait and wait. Finally a train guy comes by and tells me that the train won’t be moving for 5 hours. I didn’t ask why, just what was the next train I could catch to Cologne. I am on that train now. I don’t know if I’ll make it to Paris on time. I’m just hoping that if I don’t Flybe will be understanding and exchange my ticket for a later flight (if they have one).

*crosses fingers*

See you on the other side! Of the Channel, that is.

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