Day 14 ~ trains, trains and more trains. 

So this morning I decided to venture to Poland (why not) for Perogies before venturing to Julia’s in Oldenburg. After checking out of the hostel and putting my luggage in a locker at Berlin HBF, I made it to Szczecin, Poland (about an hour and 1/2 train ride – where I did witness an arrest on the train – that was a bit exciting!). Upon my arrival, I set out to walk the kilometer to the restaurant I had picked based on yelp reviews, which was right inside the center of the old city. It was a beautiful, but very hot stroll, right along the Oder River. I took very few pictures, as I really just enjoyed the stroll and the observations of people in this small town. 

   
    
    
    
    
  
At the restaurant I ordered Perogies and a dark polish beer, before wandering the town a bit more and catching my train. At this point I had wandered far enough away from the train station to warrant taking a bus, so I found a bus that went to Glównéy (the train station) and got on. I went to the ticket machine on the bus and discovered it was broken – and the driver didn’t speak English – so I was at a loss of what to do. I got off the bus at my stop – praying the whole time that ticket inspection didn’t come through – because I didn’t have high hopes of there being much English spoken. All was well – I got of the bus at the train station, and bought a ticket there from the kiosk – really just to make myself feel better honestly – then went on into the train station. 

This is where my train adventure  began. I made it to Berlin, on time, retrieved my luggage from the locker in the massive HBF station, and found my platform to start my journey to Oldenburg. I boarded the train to Hannover, and then the delays started. There were rail works, and I quickly realized I wasn’t going to make my connection. No fear, the next train would be fine, and I could catch it without a problem, right? 

In Hannover, I was able to grab a water, and a smoothie for a snack – which was good. Then I headed to the platform – and this is where my trip became much more exciting. Lesson learned – double check your journey number before boarding a train – I jumped on what I thought was the right train going to Bremen, when in fact I got on the train headed to Hamburg – my train wasn’t set to arrive for another 5 minutes. Whoops! 

Oh well – an adventure is always good – I was able to reroute with the delay and arrived in Oldenburg about 3 hours later than initially anticipated – (after additional delays due to “people on the track” and “unknown causes” but here none the less, and had both Julia and Heinz waiting for me at the station, and when I got to Julia’s had a lovely shower, fresh pasta salad and Chardonnay waiting for me! Tomorrow we are going to take it easy and see where the day takes us, as it is forecasted  to be very hot here in Northern Germany (100/F) – and a lazy, laundry and relax day may be in order! 

Author: Merry

I am a teacher, techie, avid traveler and explorer. View all posts by Merry