This morning was interesting to say the least. After waking up bright and early at my hotel in Amsterdam, I checked out, grabbed some breakfast (finally caved and had "american" pancakes), and headed to the train station. I got there about half an hour before my train to Amersfoort was supposed to leave.
All was going well until they announced the first notice that the train would be 10 minutes late leaving. I knew that I would still get to Amersfoort in time to make my connection. But then that 10 minutes turned into 25 minutes, and before I knew it, I was being told over the intercom (first in dutch, then heavily accented (and because of the accent unintelligible) german, and then bad english), that I would need to take a train to Utrecht and then connect from there to Amersfoort to make my connection.
So I trusted what I heard and hopped on the train to Utrecht. The trip wasn't long only about 20 minutes. Of course I got there, and had no idea where I was supposed to go. I found an information booth, and the guy there said to go to the "hi-speed train booth" (as they would have info on all the trains going international). It took about 5 minutes to find where he was talking about, and then to my horror they wanted me to take a number and stand in line.
Apparently I looked pretty confused, as one of the ladys asked me directly from the counter (ignoring the people in front of me) if I was catching the train to Berlin (I'm guessing I wasn't the only connecting passenger they'd had to deal with). I said yes, and they said I needed to hurry to track 12 to catch my train. I had been looking at all the information boards about outgoing trains, and sure enough, there was a train on track 12 that had been delayed leaving for 15 minutes (giving me about 2 minutes by that point). However, it didn't actually say where the train was GOING. Hence my confusion.
So I hurried onto that track, and hopped onto the train. I found one of the travel guides, and sure enough, this was my train to Berlin.
Funnily enough, the train I managed to catch in Utrecht (a stop about half an hour before getting to Amersfoort) was the exact same one I needed to catch in Amersfoort. I'm not exactly sure, but I think one of the trains from that morning (no idea where) had some problem either making it not workable, or working with a delay, so they had to shuffle trains around, and as a result had delays to make sure people could still catch their connections. By the time I got to Berlin, we had an hour and a half of delays.
Needless to say, I got back to Berlin without any other trouble.
While I was on the train though, Sam called, and said she needed a cover for a babysitting job she had. She said none of her other friends could make it, and asked if I could do it. I told her (this was while I was still en route) that I couldn't make any guarantees, but that if I got back to Berlin by 4pm, that I'd do it. Well, I got back at around 3:30, so I ended up taking the job.
I had to be at the kid's house at around 6pm, and stay till the parents got home around midnightish. All in all, it was actually pretty fun. After that, I headed back to my apartment and crashed.
