Day 17 & 18 - The Road Home

---

---

Day 17 - A Day of Trains

Wednesday was a bit of a later start, but I was still at the station, in the gloomy Bremen morning weather, by 9.30, with an hour to wait for my train. The train on the same route before mine was 15 minutes late, which spelled bad news for me, so I checked out my back-up options in case I couldn't make the 7 minute connection in Münster. My train was 9 minutes late, but thankfully I managed to make up the time running between platforms in Münster!

Crossing the border over to Enschede in the Netherlands, I had a small wait for the next train to Hilversum, where I caught my final train of the day to Amsterdam Centraal Station.

Arriving here, at 4pm, the weather was much better, with sun reigning. I found my hotel in minutes, and they 'kindly' gave me a room on the 4th floor with only a narrow staircase to get to it. It smelt a bit of smoke, but it was a place to sleep. I found a McDonald's for food - not fancying the coffee shops very much on my own - and then returned to the hotel for the night.

Day 18 - Home

On the final day of my travels, I got up at 8.30, and slowly packed my things to leave. Outside was miserable and dreary, but with a backpack it's hard to know whether to wear t-shirt and shorts or jumper and trousers - a choice between getting cold and wet, or sweating - but I sensibly donned my thicker trousers and left just after nine (struggling my way down the windy (as in narrow) staircase with my back pack).

Once I was inside Amsterdam station, it really began to rain, and thunder and lightening plagued the journey on the train too, but by the time I reached Brussels at lunch time, the rain had cleared, but the clouds still loomed overhead. I had a subway ham roll and then waited to check in to the Eurostar. I went through the Belgian Passport Control, the security scan thing, then the British Border Control, and then I was in the Departure lounge for the hour wait for the Eurostar. On the train, I, once again, had to show my passport which only helps to emphasize British bureaucracy and pointless security even more.

At the British end of the tunnel, the sun was shining, but I caught the underground from St. Pancras to Liverpool Street, and then caught my 30 minutes late train to Norwich.

At 7.20, I was met at the station by my mum and brother, and finally set foot outside for the first time since I left Amsterdam, and then it was a ride in the car home for some well needed rest!

Some final thoughts...

It's now the day after I got back, and I've managed to get round to typing this all up at last! The photos from the rest of the journey should follow tomorrow, but I just have a few words of conclusion and (mostly political) thoughts from the last few days of my trip, which I had to put on here.

One of the things that's immediately apparent from my journey is how isolated Britain is; everywhere on my trip the stations have had trains going to numerous other countries side by side with long distance domestic or more local train. And Grenzenlos really seems to become the word of 21st Century continental Europe. Other than needing my passport number for a few Youth Hostels and Hotels, I've only shown it for the flight out of Britain, and for the train back to Britain (3 times), thanks to the Schengen Zone. You wonder whether the UK will ever decide to follow its European 'neighbours', or will it just stick to the US type policy of pointless tightened security and choosing who they let in (eg. Yusuf Islam - Cat Stevens - being refused entry into the USA in 2004 - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3682434.stm).

Another thing that is immediately apparent from staying in various youth hostels throughout my three weeks' travelling and meeting people from Hong Kong, Italy and Brazil (to name only three), is that people will automatically speak English to each other. I find it so surreal to have people from countries not renowned for their English speakers chatting to each other in the language I grew up with. Indeed you could even say it's been difficult for me to speak German, because everyone wants to speak English.

The past three weeks have been the most fantastic time, and I think they've really helped me see and understand far more about the German culture, and the culture of travelling, than can be done from simply sitting at home reading books. My German is also noticeably better to myself, and the practice reading, listening and most importantly speaking has done me the world of good. I now have to prepare myself for the new adventure of University towards the end of September, which will be another experience to look forward to, and probably another to remember.

Photos of the last 13 days of my trip will be on here soon, but for the written portion of my blog, I guess I have to say "that's all, folks!"

Tschüss!

The End

---