Thursday, January 26, 2012

the day no trains went to Scotland

I've done a lot of traveling in my day (in case that wasn't already apparent). And through it all, the worst complication I've encountered in it all has been some minor delays that never really affected the rest of the trip. I'm the first to admit that I've had some very good luck when I travel. 

On our way to Scotland though, my luck changed. 
If you'll remember, our ferry route went from Amsterdam to Newcastle. Which meant a train from Dortmund to Amsterdam and a train from Newcastle to Glasgow. Now, after 18 months of living in Germany, I've developed what I like to call Deutsche Bahn Syndrome - the belief that all modes of transportation will be delayed or canceled causing you to miss a connection of any normal connection time. Because of my DBS, I tend to over estimate the amount of time needed while connecting (hence us ending up in Amsterdam 3 hours before our Ferry) So with our ferry scheduled to arrive in Newcastle 9am, I booked our train for 11:45am.

Little did I know, it wouldn't matter in the end.

How could Andrea and I know that while we were enjoying a relaxed breakfast at the Newcastle train station, the winds of chance were blowing our plans right off track. 

And with that sentence, I win the pun award of the year! 

See, the winds were so bad in Scotland that day that roads were closed, northbound travel was discouraged and every train within and going to Scotland was canceled. Get it? Get it?! Winds, blown off the track?! I crack myself up.
When we saw the initial notice that our train was canceled, my natural DBS response kicked in and I knew to talk to the officials before panicking. Of course after being told, and I quote, "no trains are traveling to Scotland today," the panic set in. 

We quickly sought refuge in the neighboring Starbucks, where we could free wifi our way to a solution. and It didn't take too long for us to realize our best option might just be camping out in Newcastle for the night. 

Later that night, from the comfort of our Newcastle hotel, we found out the winds got up to 102mph (164km/h) that day. I was my first real travel crisis, and I have to say Andrea and I survived it pretty well. And even though we had to cut Glasgow from the itinerary, we eventually did make it up to Scotland! 

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