Wandering Where We’ll Be

As I write this, I am sitting on the train carrying us away from the small town of Cesky Krumlov (in the Czech Republic). We’re sitting in the second of two rail cars — a very short train. This is the most simple train we’ve been on. Even more simple than the single passenger care we rode in Wales to the coastal town of Tenby. The bench seats are barely padded, with the backrest positioned at a right-angle to the seat. Dan sits straight across from me, jotting ideas and sketchings into his notebook. Occasionally, we’ll both look up at the same time and smile at each other. There’s a small shelf no wider that about eight inches on the wall just below the window. The ride is rough, especially compared to the ultra-smooth ride of Germany’s ICE (Inter-City Express) trains. There are no classes (1st or 2nd); everyone rides together in the same class.

Despite the simplicity of the train we’re on, it’s a pleasant ride. The two rail cars roll through evergreen forests of spruce and pine, hardwoods, like oaks that still seem to be hanging onto a good deal of their leaves. And, some trees even retain some of their color! We pass through small Czech villages with all their red-tile-roofed houses huddled together. It’s a cool, but mostly sunny day — and warmer than a few, recent, cold and windy days we had in Prague last week. (We even had a few snow flurries, but it didn’t last.) We hear the train’s whistle blow nearly constantly as we cut across country roads. We stop every few minutes at various train stations — most are just small buildings seemingly plopped randomly somewhere near the train tracks. We see what we believe to be deer out in the field, as well as various wild game birds, like pheasants. And, we’ve paid the correct fare; we know exactly where we’re going and when we’ll get there. Such wasn’t necessarily the case a week and a half ago when we made what should have been the simple train trip from Berlin to Leipzig to visit our friend, Flo, who is attending University there. The series of errors that led to our being two hours late in meeting Flo at the train station in Leipzig really began a couple days earlier.

We were walking back to our hostel in eastern Berlin late one evening and saw a sign that said, “Check email for free!” Some hostels provide free internet, which usually requires signing up for a limited timeframe or waiting in line for others to get done. But, our hostel in Berlin was not one of these; they had a coin-operated computer terminal, and the cost for internet time can quickly add up. Thinking that there must be a “catch,” we stopped at the internet cafe and asked about checking our email for free. Yes, there was a bit of a catch. We could use an internet terminal for four minutes without being charged; after that, normal charges would apply. OK, we’ll check our email. The only email of interest was one from Flo, letting us know where at the train station he would meet us and providing us the phone number to contact him if we needed. OK, great! Any other emails we had received could wait, and we were done before the four minutes were up. But, since we had come from a concert, neither Dan nor I had our normal pen and paper with us. So, we weren’t able to write the phone number down; we’d get it tomorrow.

The next evening, we took a train ovr to western Berlin to go to a couple bars for drinks. We hadn’t really gone out for drinks in Berlin, yet, waiting until later in the week (Thursday) when the bars would be more “happening” than they generally are earlier in the week. We had a good time, chatting for awhile with a female singer/songwriter originally from the area, but also lived in New York and Vienna, singing for various clubs. When we were ready to head back to the hostel, we walked to the U-Bahn station and found signs saying, “Out of Service.” Hmmm…we had run into construction re-routes on the U-Bahn earlier in the day. Let’s try another platform; this was also “Out of Service.” Eventually, somebody told us that the U-Bahn was done running for the evening and that we’d have to take the bus. We hadn’t, yet, used the Berlin bus system, but the bus lines were on our map. So, we found a line that would take us back to our hostel, and the next bus would be coming in about 20 minutes. The bus arrived on schedule, but we didn’t get to bed until after 2 am.

We set the alarm to wake us up the next morning, but we didn’t (apparently) allow enough time to shower, pack and eat breakfast. Realizing that we were short on time, we inhaled our cereal, check out of the hostel, and practically ran out to the U-Bahn stop. We need to make one transfer to get to the Haupbahnhof (main train station). However, this transfer was at the same U-Bahn stations we had a problem with the other day. Not immediately seeing how to get to the next U-Bahn train and running short on time, I did see a sign saying, “Leipzig — 10:54.” Hmmm…it looks like our 10:52 train from the Haupbahnhof will be stopping here on its way out of town, and I’m not sure we’ll make it to the main station by 10:52 anyway — seems logical. We got on and, when the conductor came around for our tickets, found out that it was a “private” train not covered by our Eurail Pass — oh, great! We could pay 15 euros each (which, in retrospect, we should have done — but, we had paid good monet for our rail pass, and 30 euros is a lot of money when you’re trying to travel cheaply for six months.) or get off at the next stop. As you can tell, we got off at the next station.

While we were talking to a train station staff person — but not an official customer service respresentative — trying to determine when the next non-“private” train would take us from this tiny station in rural — formally, East — Germany to Leipzig, a train pulled up on the opposite platform. The man we were talking to pointed at the train. That’s the one he thinks we should get on. RUN!! Up the stairs, over the tracks, down the stairs — all with our large pack on our back and day pack on our front. As the first door I reach begins to close, I jump in its way and hold it for Dan, who is right behind me. We’re on!

The next couple hours are torture for me, knowing that we’ll be late in meeting Flo and not being able to contact him. (No, we’re not traveling with a mobile phone.) Plus, we don’t even have his number written down; we never did get a chance to look at our email again later. We do need to change trains at one point and have about a 15-minute layover. At the transfer station, I run and find an internet terminal in the main station, log onto our email account, and write down Flo’s phone number. Then, I run to find a pay phone. However, I don’t have my daypack, where my country code listing is (I left it with Dan at the platform.), and I need Germany’s country code to make a call via my Ekit account. I run back to the platform, but the train we need to get on is there and will be leaving shorlty — UGGHH! Flo is going to kill us. Well, he didn’t. But, he did ask the staff at the coffee shop where we were supposed to meet to watch for two American men who looked lost and — if they saw such characters — to chain us up. Meanwhile, he went to see if the “Service Point” staff could page us in English. None could do so, and this greatly frustrated Flo, knowing of Leipzig’s efforts to become a larger player in the internation tourism and conference industry.

We apologized to Flo for our tardiness and, then, took the short, tram ride back to his place — a nice (and clean!) one-bedroom apartment in a cool, old building. After picking up some groceries from a store across the street and eating some lunch, we all went for a walk in a nearby park — very nice!

Dan and I filled out our absentee ballots that my mom had sent to Flo’s. Later, Flo made an excellent spicey chicken/mushroom/pasta in tomato sauce dish — yum! Dan and I checked email and rotated the rest of our Flickr photos. Flo made smoothies, and we watched a movie — “The Whole Nine Yards.”

The next day, we took the tram to downtown and stored our packs at the train station. Then, we did a “walking tour” of downtown, with Flo as our guide. We walked through the church where the “Monday Protests” began and, also, the church where Bach had been the Director of Music. We also went up to the observation deck of Leipzig’s skyscraper to get a “bird’s eye view” of the city.

Then, we rode the tram out to a favorite restaurant of Flo’s, MÜcken SchlÖsschen, where Dan and I had, essentially, pig’s knuckle with potato dumplings and sauerkraut (I forget the German.) and, then, apple strudel with ice cream for dessert. It was all very tasty!

We were going to visit the Volkerschlachtdenkmal (Dan and I just referred to it as the “Napoleon” monument.  It actually stands for “Monument of the Battle of the Nations”, and commemorates Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig.), but it ws raining. So, we took the tram directly to the main station and hung out at a coffee shop over some white hot chocolate.

We walked around the train station mall a bit before trying unsuccessfully to retrieve our packs from the locker. This seemed to bookend our visit to Leipzig with a final wierd train experience. We missed our planned train, but evenutally found someone to open the locker (station staff) and caught a train that left only about 10 minutes later. It was a quick, but fun visit Flo, and it was great to spend some time with a familiar face after being on the road for two months. We said goodbye to Flo and headed toward Dresden.

Tim

Tags: Europe, Leipzig

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Europe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.