Volcanic Ash rolled in after an eruption in Iceland Thursday...thousands of flights were cancelled and millions of worldwide travelers were stranded...including me! Woohoo!
Saturday afternoon after three hours in the train station of Prague, Jori and I finally put our feet down and said we will take on the trains of Europe and find our way home! There was much talk and hysteria of choosing from the many options of how to get home, but at the end of the day it was our own responsibility to get ourselves home and to do it on our own, and as 21 year olds now experienced globe trotters, I knew we could do it.
Saturday night we grabbed a bunch of candy, crackers, water and goodies to keep us sustained for our 18 hours of trains the next day. We went to bed at midnight and woke up to head to the train station at 3:45 am.
Train 1: Prague to Schwandorf, Germany
I've now been to Schwandorf! I'll save you the trip, there is only a tiny train station there, literally two platforms. The train ride was early, I thought I would sleep, but I did not and instead watched the sun rise. After realizing we did not have seat assignments, like many of the other riders, we ended up in first class. Not bad. The train man who checks the tickets understood and let us off easy. THANK YOU FOR NOT MAKING ME PAY A FINE. I am schwandorfond of you. We pulled into Schwandorf at 8 am and were ready for Munchen. There were also cute French boys on the train...good think I looked sooo pretty.
Train 2: Schwandorf to Munchen
On this train I overheard a son and father talking about how they needed to catch a train to Verona...so I tapped the kid on the shoulder and asked. As Verona was our next destination. We ended up chatting, the son, father and mother about their experience.., they were visiting their other son in Prague and got stranded trying to return to the states. They were so nice, from somewhere in New York. They were going to end up staying the night in Rome, so we shared a bit of our Roman knowledge to tell them where to go. On our way pulling into the station there was another couple headed to Verona, so we ran from one train platform to the other together to promptly find the next train and make it on. It was a quick easy ride, but the next one would be the doozy.
Train 3: Munchen to Verona
I have never been to Verona before! Ok, so good thing Jori and I had seat assignments for this train, or else we would have spent 6 hours in the aisle. No thank you. We shared a train car with four other people. One, being a woman who did not speak the entire time and was on her computer. Two, an older skinny Italian woman who taught school in Germany. Three, a younger Italian boy who was visiting Germany aspiring to be an Archeologist, very smiley. And Four a business man from Hong Kong, who was trying to get home to see his son, but was then coming back to Europe in a few days, oy. The train was packed and hoppin' clearly the place to be was Verona. Jori and I ate snacks, read, and slept. I mostly slept. But the scenery, I am telling you was amazing. We went through Germany and Austria and Italy and saw many mountain ranges and vineyards. It was really beautiful. The hours went by decently fast, and we finally arrived to Verona where we needed to purchase our ticket to Rome...I had a feeling the train would be full, as several times I overheard people saying this was the last train to Rome that day. So Jori and I stationed ourselves at the door ready to run to the ticket line. The man from Hong Kong tagged along, it was a bit strange, I guess he thought we knew what we were doing.
We ran to the ticket line, smart, because the line immediately became very long. However, the train to Rome was sold out, so we were forced to by a train ticket to Padova leaving at midnight (it was now 5 pm) and from Padova to Rome and we would get home at 7 am. At this point I didn't care, there was a McDonalds near by, so we would kill time there. We had a ticket home and that is what mattered. However as Jori and I were savoring our first McChicken sandwiches in a looong time (the man from Hong Kong sat down with us...), we saw several familiar young faces. There were tons of kids studying from Florence and Rome in the Verona train station. See, I told you it was the place to be. After talking of cars to take home, buses, shuttles, flying squirrels and magic carpets, and several other methods of getting home...we decided to look into hopping on the train we originally wanted to take to Rome leaving at 6:55 pm. Jori and I sprinted to the train platform at approximately 6:45, feeling nauseous from my McChicken as we were running. We spotted a conductor and we hunted him down. I don't know who was looking over us and how it happened, but Jori and I began telling him our situation, and I managed to sweet talk him into letting us on that train!! I guess I am persuasive, I have no idea, definitely not my looks because I looked like shit, excuse my french. We had to pay the difference for our tickets, but we honestly did not care at that point. I wanted to kiss the man on his feet, but refrained. We were on the train and going HOME! Jori and I were elated. We sat in the back and let me tell you, honey, this train was not full! Jori and I were expecting to have to stand in the aisle, but we sat comfortably the whole ride. We pulled, miraculously, into the Termini train station at 9 pm. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY. I will never leave Rome again! That is I may never be able to leave Rome again.
All in all, this is what abroad is about. These are experiences I will always remember. Sitting in a classroom does not teach you what I learned in that one single day of traveling. I feel like I can accomplish anything now, bring me another Volcano and I will take it on! It was a day to remember and now Jori and I can laugh and look back at how insane that trip was. We, however, had it pretty good traveling back, there are so many worse cases, including more trains, ferries, buses, over night stays in foreign countries, etc. Good Luck to whoever is still stranded out there! If you need moral support give me a ring.
That is all for now....more to come later on.
Today it is April 24, and I leave May 9 for Israel....what is happening and where has the time gone?
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