monologue narratives.

A few months prior, I met my friend in a bar in central Amsterdam where they brew their own beers and the servers were people who couldn't work anywhere else. She told me about her summer plan which was to travel Europe all done via train. It’s a program called Interail (or Eurail) which I had never heard of before, but soon after I became so obsessed and I did that by myself and I have to say it was a great experience. 

Of course, it wasn’t all flowery, and I don’t think this method of transportation is suitable for everyone. Definitely not for traveling family or older people, it requires a lot and a lot of walking and sometimes you just don’t get a seat. But that’s a story for another time; this was about after I finished my whole trip and it was time to return from München to Amsterdam. It’s an 8-hour train trip, with one transfer at Frankfurt Flughafen. We’re supposed to take the ICE train. I don’t mind sitting down for 8 hours you see; we didn’t need to pay anything aside from the reservation fee so I thought great sure.  

We arrived pretty early at München HBF, around 8 or 9-ish. Grabbed a pretzel and some other bread to eat on the way. The train ride was okay, I thought it was going to be a more ordinary day, but it didn’t go as planned as we were about to approach a small city called Göppingen, somewhere near Stuttgart. There was, and I quote them “a medical emergency” and everyone was required to get off the train, or else you can take the train back to München. 

Needing to go back that day, I can’t go back to München and afford to take a longer way back. So we got off, not really knowing what to do. I was furiously trying to find another way to escape Göppingen, maybe via Flixbus or whatnot? I don’t think that city is very popular, literally, there is no way for us to exit Göppingen aside from waiting for that train to leave. 

So Göppingen – Stuttgart was train 2. 

We sat down at random seat that was empty, I overheard there were some other families also traveling with Interrail because other people were asking for possible refunds. Also, I heard that the train was there an hour before, so I thought damn, okay, I need to be patient. After sitting around with no news, sometimes I heard there was an announcement, but they were in German... so I asked a friend of mine to translate it for me via voice note. 

I wasn’t super sure how long I wait there, but finally, the train moved and we arrived in Stuttgart. Stuttgart is a bigger train station with more connections, but honestly, I can feel the chaos there already. We just took whatever the train that we could at that point. We took a train from Stuttgart – Mannheim (train 3) and honestly, the train was so full I didn’t have any seats, I had to sit down in the smallest hallway because half of them were occupied by the staff’s room, I sit just across the staff’s toilet and where the staff made an announcement. It was awful but short, less than 1-hour train ride. 

And so, we arrived at Mannheim, and I think after asking around we were advised to take the train from Mannheim to Köln. (train no. 4) And honestly it was one of the nicest trains we took that day because I can sit and relax, even almost fell asleep for a bit. I thought I was doing fine once I arrived at Köln because I’ve been to Köln before! I even took a cheeky picture of the Musical Dome next to the station since they have the big "L’amour" written on the dome for the opening of Moulin Rouge! The Musical a few months later.  

I thought that I could do this, it’s only around 3 hours from Amsterdam.  

I was waiting for a train called the Arriva Slow Train. Arriva is a train “brand” that operates around the border of the Netherlands / Germany. I took one prior from Maastricht to Aachen, it was fine before. This one was also fine, it was supposed to stop at Arnhem, and once I arrived at Arnhem, I would be able to take a direct train to Amsterdam. At that moment it was late, I can’t remember what time it was, maybe around 5ish? 6ish? The summer sun is fooling me most of the time.  

But boy, was I wrong. 

At some point, I saw there were a lot of people who stood up and left the train in such a rush, even I helped a guy holding his suitcase that almost slid off. I found something suspicious where I didn’t see the little screen that didn’t say Arnhem as a destination but something else completely different. The old German man next to me was smiling at me, looking at the whole chaos happening, and I started to get suspicious. I asked him: 

“This train is going to Arnhem… right?” 

And so, he replied, “Well, only the front half of it.” 

I stood up, and grabbed my bag (thankfully I packed LIGHT, I only have one backpack and one travel bag). And leave the train before they close and go to a destination I don’t know. As I left the train, I watched with my eyes the train carriages got separated in half, leaving the other half as if it was a rocket launching to the unknown, leaving the other half behind with some people who got left behind by the other train, all confused and stunned in the train platform. 

Welcome to Wesel, Germany (train no. 5), where it all began to get interesting. 

I started to talk with other people who were also stranded at the same train station. All of them are going to the Netherlands as well, actually. One couple, they were a pair of Dutch girl and an American guy. They just got back from a wedding in Black Forrest, Germany and quickly we became friends with them who suffered the same fate. So after a while, we shared what we knew about that the next train was going to arrive an hour later. We passed the time by talking and getting to know each other. There were quite some people who got stranded, at least it feels like we’re all in this together. Strangers are bound by the same destination and the same hardship. 

After a little over an hour, the next train, the same train arrived at the same train station. The station is so small there wasn’t any other train passing by at that time. There were only 2 tracks and I would imagine that one of them is going towards Köln and the other one leaving Köln. We learned our lesson this time, we took the front carriage and the train seemed to be smooth sailing, I looked at my 9292 apps nervously as we were going closer and closer, passing by a small German suburban with unfamiliar houses and mountains. (There was no mountain in the Netherlands, but there are some in Germany).  

And just when we arrived at the small town called Emmerich, Germany (train 6); it was around 3 stops before we entered the Netherlands border, but the train stopped for an absurdly long time. The door was open, welcoming for anyone to leave. Since it had been too long someone asked the train conductor and they said that the train had stopped moving, in short, it was broken. They weren’t able to put out an announcement because… apparently the announcement machine was also broken. 

So that was the ill fate that we had to face. 

We did it all again like we did before. Got off the train, and waited under the small shelter since the station is once again super small. Now we also chatted with other people aside from the Dutch-American couple, there was a dad with a small child who came from Berlin and another woman who came from Hamburg, and somehow we all ended up there. She mentioned that usually, she would take the car but she wanted to relax and take the train, oh boy how wrong was that. 

Aside from the small rain and the stress of not knowing how long we needed to wait (9292 app is still useless since they’re not in NL territory) we actually bonded, we talked about our trip and how weird their journey of that day. After all, after another hour or so, another train arrived towards Arnhem.  

This time, we were filled with anxiety, since our days had been long and so tiring.

I was also a little bit hungry at that time, maybe around dinner time already but leaving the station would spike my anxiety even more. So we ate the rest of our food bag. I always travel with a bag full of food, especially if it is a long travel. It started back in 2018, when I went home from Korea to Indonesia and I didn’t have any spare food, and things went wrong. So I had a food bag, which consisted of all sorts of food/snacks we brought along the way. Thankfully it was enough before we had real food. 

So when the train arrived, we got on the train, we met another person who was moving from Germany to the Netherlands and he brought a HUGE suitcase and this was the unluckiest day to travel. I look nervously at my map, looking at the names of the stations we were about to pass, thinking if this train breaks down one station before the Netherlands I’m gonna fucking lose it. 

The train seemed tense, but as soon as we saw the familiar brick houses and we passed the station in the Netherlands all of the trains literally CHEERED. It was insane, as if you were watching a soccer game and the room exploded with a goal. It was a common win for everyone who had a very long day. The cutest thing happened when a little girl (daughter of the father from Berlin) said with the cutest voice) “Are we home yet?” and the train found it adorable. 

And so, that was the story of how it feels so comforting to see the flat lands and the dull brick houses of the Netherlands. Thankfully we arrived at Arnhem safely, and I was so glad to see the blue and yellow snake, as known as the NS Train. We bid farewell to the couple and the others as we had to take another train from Arnhem to Utrecht. (train 7)

That was so, tiring, but NS was quite nice after a long betrayal by DB. We took the last train from Utrecht to Amsterdam (train 8) and that was the story of how I took 8 trains in a day.