We’ve had a friend staying in our guest house for the past week who is currently in the process of moving to Africa. And it’s not exactly a simple move either because her furniture is staying in Frankfurt in her apartment which has been sublet (which has become a nightmare of its own), some of her stuff is being moved to her parents in London and the rest is going with her to Marekesh.

She woke up last Thursday morning, thinking she was just going to hop a plane to London in the evening with her insanely heavy luggage being schlepped most of the way by the airplane. But thanks to a volcano in Iceland by the name of Eyjafallajökull (a mouthful to say the least — even listening to the correct pronunciation didn’t help me come close to saying it right) those plans totally fell apart.

Planes in most of Europe have been grounded because of the massive plume of volcanic ash that was launched (and continues to be launched) into the atmosphere. And at the moment, there is no sign of those planes being back in the air anytime soon. I have to say we don’t mind it a bit. We’ve had 4 days of the most beautiful, clear weather ever. And it’s so peaceful without all the planes going over.

But back to our friend. Since she couldn’t fly on Thursday, and it didn’t look like she’d be flying the next day, she worked out a plan with her mom. Our friend would take a train from Frankfurt to Brussels, Belgium. Her mom would take a ferry from London and drive to Brussels to pick her up. It sounded simple enough. But apparently most of the rest of the travelers in the world had the same idea.

So here’s where the real saga really begins. Stefan drove our friend to the train station and they parked underneath. The elevators were shut down (most like something to do with the junkies that live in them) so they had to take the stairs. Thankfully only one of the bags they were carrying weighed as much as Ayla.

Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof was overrun by people. They got to the platform at 1pm, 30 minutes before the train arrived, and people were already swarming. When the train finally arrived, 15 minutes late, it was “panderlium” (as Jeff Foxworthy so nicely puts it.) People were elbowing their way onto the train, pushing and shoving to get into the doors and find a seat. Hardly anyone had a seat reservation and the trains were absurdly overbooked. I can’t even imagine what kind of catastrophe it would have been if one of these trains had derailed.

Because our friend didn’t have a seat reservation, she ended up sitting on her bag in the area of the train where you get on and off. In normal circumstances, you’re not allowed to sit there. But Stefan and I have ridden in that are while on our way to Oktoberfest before, when the trains are also always packed. But apparently the trains during Oktoberfest travel were nothing compared to what this train looked like.

So the train left and our friend was thankfully on it. We could only hope and pray that she made it to Brussels without trouble where her mom had been waiting for hours. Because by chance, she’d left London a few hours in advance and hopped on the earlier ferry…which was a real stroke of luck since the ferry she’d wanted to take was completely booked.

Now here’s the rest of the story from our friend directly. Some sentences are in German and I’ve translated them for you. And in case you’re wondering, yes, we often do switch back and forth like this from one language to another. We call it “Germ-lish.” 🙂

Wow, what a journey… don’t even know where to start telling you about it.

Okay, so after Stefan dropped me off at the train station and helped me get all my stuff into the train (THANKS AGAIN!!), we left Frankfurt with the next stop being Frankfurt airport. The train was PACKED then already and I couldn’t believe it when even MORE people got on the train… I was fine – had my “little seat” in a corner so all was good.

Eventually left the airport and then things got really messed up when we got to Cologne… train stopped – EVEN MORE people got on the train… at this point the train was OVERpacked und die ersten Durchsagen (and the first announcements) started… they asked that everyone without a Sitzplatzreservierung (seat reservation) leave the train and said that their journey terminates here. Of course noone moved and the woman kept repeating her Durchsagen (announcement) over and over again – mit keinerlei Auswirkung auf die Situation (with zero effect on the situation).

She said that we could take a Regionalzug to Aachen, from Aachen another little train, change somewhere else and then get to Brussels. I was thinking about it and was like “no way, I’ll never ever handle 3 changes with all my luggage…”.

To make a long story short, as noone listened to the woman, she started threatening us with the police: “dass sie von ihrem Hausrecht Gebrauch machen würden und alle ohne Sitzplatzreservierung eine Anzeige bekommen würden (Deutsche Bahn would enforce their rights as property owners and everyone without a seat reservation would have charges filed against them)”…

10 Minutes later the Police really did surround our train and waited at the exit of each train. At this point I decided to leave the train weil eine Anzeige ist das letzte was mir jetzt grad noch gefehlt hat (because the last thing I need right now is to have charges filed against me)…

Some English people helped me with my stuff and we got on the Regionalzug to Aachen… My mom was already waiting in Brussels at this point (and I still hadn’t left Cologne) so I asked her to come to Aachen and pick me up there as I had no clue at what time I would arrive in Brussels… of course traffic was absolutely insane but we managed to meet in Aachen at 19.30. Our ferry at 21.30 we already missed at that point as it would take us 3,5 hrs to get to Calais. People on the train had already told me that the ferries were all booked out…

There was only the 23:00 and the 02:15 ferry we could still get, and as traffic was insane we were pretty sure we couldn’t make the 23:00 ferry. Well, eventually we got to Calais at 23:20. Wir fahren zum kleinen Häuschen vor (We drive up to the little hut), I tell them that we missed our ferry and ask if there is any way of getting on the 2 o’clock ferry.

“No, booked out, I can put you on the 8.40 ferry in the morning”…

Anyway, ich hab auf die Tränendrüse gedrückt (I turned on the waterworks), told them that I had a more than shitty day ob es nicht irgendeine Möglichkeit gäbe noch auf die 2 Uhr Fähre zu kommen (isn’t there some way we can get on the 2am ferry). Suddenly he prints something out, hands it to me, tells me to hurry up, that he just gave us the very last spot on the 23.00 ferry… “Goooooooo”.

So we drove like maniacs, made it on the ferry and they closed everything behind us and we left… First time we had luck that day. LOL. We didn’t even have to pay anything… probabbly would have cost too much time. ;o)

So arrived at home at 2am in the morning… it was a looooooong day, but so glad I made it.

She’s making her way back to us on Thursday before she heads to Marakesh. She’ll be taking the train again but will have considerably less luggage and already booked her seat reservation. Hopefully that trip will be a lot less eventful!

Hope everyone having to travel in this chaos arrives safely and without too many headaches. I can only imagine what it must be like to be one of the people camped out in an airport somewhere in Europe. The Terminal on a mass scale.