German Efficiency, My Ass

I really wish that I had started writing about Berlin before I tried to get out of it. I absolutely adored Berlin, much more so than I expected and even more than Munich, but I’m afraid that my description might be clouded by the hellatious time I’ve had trying to get from Berlin to Amsterdam. Maybe if I write about it first (not sure if I’m going to post it first), I’ll get the venom out of my system before I start writing about the rest of my trip to Berlin.

First off, let me say this. “German efficiency” can kiss my ass because I haven’t been able to get in or out of this country on time, yet. So far, my second trip out – the one I’m on now – has been the worst of all. People had less trouble getting out of East Berlin during the cold war than I’m having today.

I’m neurotic when it comes to travel. I get to where I need to be on time. No, not on time. Early. Very early. I was at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof an hour before my train was supposed to take off, waiting patiently. I got a sandwich to pack away for lunch, got a muffin, got some coffee, and went to the track forty minutes early.

Now, let me tell you about the tracks. There are eight tracks, numbered 9-16, all in this little complex. The weather outside is bad, so there are numerous delays and announcements, mostly in German. Now, occasionally there would be an English announcement, but that didn’t matter. Announcements were coming over the speakers at five tracks at once, all different announcements, and even if I was fluent in German, I wouldn’t have been able to understand five people speaking it at once.

I kept checking the overhead board at my track that said my train was coming at 10;37. At around 10:40, they took my train off the board. Then there was an announcement, finally in English, that the train would not run today. Then, they apologized for any inconvenience. That made everything better. GODDAMMIT!!!!

So, I go to a ticket counter to see if I can get a different ticket, perhaps to a train that was going to run. At least this part was relatively easy. They put me on a train that had to make a connection in Duisburg that was leaving in five minutes from the track on which my original train was supposed to leave. I can handle that. Just walk back to where I was and wait three or four more minutes. Right?

About ten minutes later, some woman comes to yell at me in German. I tell her that I don’t understand what she’s saying. She obliges me by yelling at me in broken English. The train’s not running upstairs. I have to go downstairs. She tells me that I should have looked at the big board downstairs. Oops, sorry. I go downstairs to the big board and it says Track 13. There’s only one Track 13. It’s upstairs. And the train is running 50-minutes late (meaning I’ll miss my connection, but I’ll get to that).

I go to the people who exchanged my ticket and they tell me everything is fine, but the train is actually going to run out of Track 3 or 4, downstairs. I still have a few minutes, so I knock people down and jump over suitcases like O.J. Simpson in the 1970s. (I was tempted to go all O.J. Simpsons in the 1990s, but fortunately, it didn’t come to that. At least, it hasn’t yet.) I get down to Track 3/4 and wait about five minutes and notice, without any announcement in either German or English, that the board has changed to say that the train is now heading out of Track 7. Grab my 100 pounds of crap, run upstairs, run downstairs get on Track 7.

About an hour late, the second train arrives. I get on it. It goes from Berlin to Amsterdam, but there is a connection in Duisburg. Originally, I had a 41-minute wait time for the connection. Now, it appears I’m going to arrive 20 minutes or so late, depending on how much more time we lose. My hopes are that (a) the train running out of Duisburg is a half-hour or so late and/or (b) there are plenty of trains running from Duisburg to Amsterdam since I’m arriving in Duisburg around 4:00 pm.

Anyway, the best laid plans and all that. F@#king German trains. I thought these things were supposed to run on time. I hope I get to Amsterdam sometime tonight and I’ll probably update this post eventually to let you know if/when/how-in-the-hell I make it.

Toodles.

(Ed: Obviously, I made it to Amsterdam. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be so high, umm, I mean I wouldn’t be able to post this. Since the train stopped in a station other than Amsterdam’s main station and after 8 pm, trying to figure out the public transportation here was futile and I had to hop a train without a ticket and randomly guess where to hop off. I guessed wrong. Cost me about 30 more minutes. Oh well. It’s all better now . . .)