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Europe Hit By MGH
abit of an odd entry here, but i feel it is important to let everyone know just how difficult it is to travel around europe, because i dont think people grasp the effort it takes.
Nick and i left Budapest on a tight scheduel, we had to be in munich by 8.30 or something like that, (the actual times maybe different). There was a train to Paris leaving munich at about 9.00 so we had half an hour to book a ticket and get ourseleves on that train. As far as we were aware, this was the last train to Paris that night. From Paris, we had about 45 mins to change our eurostar to an ealier time and board the train to waterloo. ALthough not the easiest journey, on paper it was achievable, however, on the morning of the 28th, something changed in the air. Prehaps we were nieve not to notice it, but somewhere above us, the big man was up to his old tricks. He knew it was our last day on our Europe trip, and he wanted to have some fun.
The first few hours of our train journey to Munich were as nice as any train had been, an empty compartment to ourselves, talking about top 11 biggest flops in the premier league, the usual banter. We were on the ball with our train timetable, we knew how much time we could lose from station to station. But nothing could have prepared us for our stop off in Vienna. As we calculated how late we were becoming, we worked out where we could steal a couple of minutes at other stops until things just became ridiculous. An hour was spent in Vienna, more or less smashing our dreams of making munich by 8. It was a disaster, but things were about to get much worse. Eventually our train began to move, or so i thought. It was actually the train next to us, it was the big man playing with my eyes. It would have been ok had i not let out a squeal of excitement before realising my mistake in front of a packed carriage.
Eventually we began to move for real. But in the hour delay, our compartment had gone from spacious airy oasis, to ramshanked tin of sardines. It was bareable though, and as we approached Munich people got off, and a few got on. One of these few, a pretty girl, German i think, with a little baby. She took a seat in our now empty again compartment. We were happy enough, until i began to see Nicks eyes water, and then this unbelievable waft of evapourated sewage hit the pair of us. Nightmare, and there were still at least 4 hours to go. We couldnt believe it. Not only had we missed our train to Paris, for definite now, as the driver decided to actually slow the train down instead of making up any time lost, but we were now stuck in a carriage with this pretty german lady, and her special scent, which i could see was really beginning to get the better of nick.
We stuck it out, and arrived in Munich tired, hungry and praying for a late train to Paris. For a brief moment, things began to look up, there was a train to Paris, however, it left from some dodgy suburban train station, in 3 and a half hours. So, at about 10.30 pm, in Munich, after the journey from hell, hungry, tired, and with the £160 flight not looking like such a bad idea after all, we sat by the big clock, and watched the seconds tick away. Having exhausted pretty much all variations of premiership 11's, we chatted about what Laura was up to and generally chilled. This was until, a man on an industrial floor cleaner decided it was the right time to wash the exact piece of floor we were sitting on. We got up to move, but he insisted he was able to do the job without us moving. So for a good hour, every 5 minutes, a large industrial cleaner would narrowly miss our ankles and shower us with dirty water.
We were too tired to care by this point, and just managed to pull ourselves onto a tube to 'passe' i think, where our train to paris was schedueled to arrive at about 1am. Unfortunately we had been unable to book a seat or bed for this train because it was too late, and so were told to ask the conducter when the train arrived. We were sure everyone else was in the same boat, and therefore the competition for beds fierce. We constructed a plan. I was to carry all the bags while nick ran and spoke to the conducter. It was of course, late, which totally threw us. We gambled on where the doors to the train would be. Unfortunately, and this is no lie, a group of people went to our left, and another to our right, and we kinda just stood there in the middle. With our luck on red light, of course we were standing equidistant between the only 2 doors on the train, nightmare!!! we were dead last in the queue, we would be lucky to get a seat.
Eventually after maneuvering a few people, we found a double seat which allowed us to crash out next to each other. Thankfully! However, the train was packed, we had to sit up, and they insisted on keeping the lights on full beam throughout the overnight train. We were too tired for it to effect our sleep, and we awoke in Paris Est at about 10am.
A short walk to the Eurostar office and we were in for some more bad news. Instead of being able to change our Eurostar as we'd hoped, there were apparently no spare seats for our student tickets, so we had... wait for it.......... a 7 hour wait at Le Gard De Nord! I must say at this point i was close to tears. I think i did see nick have a cheeky weep, but justified after the journey we'd just endured, only to recieve possibly the worst news of the trip so far. We were so close to home but yet so far.
After 4 hours of waiting i went to check for any cancellations and we were very lucky to find one. Thankfully the eurostar home went without problems, except for the most annoying Americans ive ever heard. Such whiny voices!
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