a few years ago: the dutch train company started a nachtrein/nighttrain route that goes in a circle from den haag to leiden to amsterdam to utrecht to rotterdam to den haag. nice for people taking an early flight out of amsterdam. or for students who like to party late into the night. but if you start in den haag it takes a couple hours to go full circle to rotterdam, though they are relatively close to each other. anyway...
yesterday. leiden.
sinterklaas party with my dispuut. great fun, have new warm socks and candles for the house. headed home at 11:ish.
got to the leiden central train station just four minutes after a train left for den haag. had to wait for the next one, at 11:52. quickly checked with a passing trainstation worker if he knew if i would have a connecting train in den haag to zoetermeer. he said yes, one at 12:25, the last one for the night. ok, good. no worries.
waited for my train, realized two minutes before it arrived that i didn't have a ticket...oops. no time now though. didn't matter...no one checked.
bought a ticket immediately in den haag. decided to get a hot chocolate while i waited for the train. hotchocolate in one hand, newspaper in the other, headed to the usual spoor/platform where the stoptrain to utrecht leaves from; it would stop in little towns, including zoetermeer, on the way.
four ticket controllers stood there blocking the entrance. one offered to hold my hotchocolate while i fished my ticket out of my bag. nice man. joked about taking a quick coffee break, started to walk away with my chocolate. the others joked about him being such a gentleman. smiles all around, i laughed back, despite the predictability of each joke. stamped my ticket without really looking at it. i kept fishing for my ticket discount card. you get a fine if you don't show it with your discounted ticket. the man didn't need to see my discountcard, he was an old gullible man, he said. i smiled and said ok. walked away. they all laughed, "she just said ok! haha! you are old!"
got in the train, briefly checking the sign over the door. yup, train to utrecht. sat down, opened my paper, drank my hot chocolate.
somewhere in the back of my head i noted that the train was taking longer than usual to get to zoetermeer. and no stops in between. odd.
back to the newspaper... interesting article. no idea any more about what...
suddenly heard "leiden. station, leiden."
what???
quickly asked the girl across the aisle where we were.
leiden.
fuck.
this is the nachttrein.
i should have read the sign more closely.
8 years ago
9 comments:
i like that i can visualize the trains now that we've been on them as i read your blog.
Amanda, taking the wrong train was totally my biggest fear when I was in the Netherlands. And now you've just affirmed my fear. but don't worry-- it's not enough to make me cancel my ticket to the netherlands!!!!
just make sure you read the signs! and if you take the wrong train, dont do it after midnight...
dumbass
hey. totally logical explanation behind it all.
oh shoot. I bet that sucked. What did you do then?
called luuk...who was sleeping and didnt hear his phone, which he for some reason always has on silent... checked the bus schedules, found out i had missed the last one, rechecked the train schedules to make sure there wasnt by any chance another one. called everyone i knew who lives in leiden, none of whom picked up (i am incredibly unpopular, apparently). finally went teary eyed and desperate to a taxi driver and got him to take me for 25euros instead of 40.
that's kinda sucky. but also, good, because you suckered someone into giving you something for less. good job! :) hope all goes well. hopefully the wedding guests find their way fine!! :)
I grams and the bunch made it out okay? how's gramma's foot?
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