Travel to Peterborough - pictures and mishappenings
I already told about the Peterborough convention and shared all my pictures of the convention called "The Greatest show in the Galaxy" here:
http://dieastra.livejournal.com/42788.html
But is anyone interested in hearing about the actuall travel? Considering how much went wrong, it is amazing I still got everywhere in time. Hear my story:
The plane in Dresden was supposed to leave at 12.50 PM. When I arrived they said, 20 minutes later, due to some repair work. Now I appreciate that they won't let us fly with broken plane, but then again I only had one hour in Frankfurt before the next plane left, and whoever has done the walk from terminal A to B knows it is a long one.
Amazing enough we still arrived at the right time, maybe we had some wind from behind! Oh, while I was on the plane they announced that it was now gate B47 I had to go to, not B23. Small detail.
So I made it, and even had time to eat a sandwich with Parma ham. Out of all the other options, this was the cheapest one. Tell you, Frankfurt airport is quite an expensive area!
Thanks to my co-worker I only had taken hand-luggage with me, as it would have been awful if I made the connection but my suitcase missed getting on the second plane. So when I arrived in Heathrow I could go straight to the tube station and go to King's Cross station. There I wanted to take the train to Peterborough. And there it was where all went wrong.
I had bought the train tickets on the internet, it was an off-peak train ticket, and I had a list of all trains I could go on with it. So I arrived at 17.30 PM and the next train would be 17.40 PM from platform 4. I went to the platform, I found the train, it even had a sign "Peterborough" at its side. I admit I found it a bit odd that I could not see any sign with the actual starting time. In Germany, there are several of those over the length of the platform. But I got into the train anyway and even managed to find a seat that wasn't reserved.
Picture of the Not!Train:
Which should have rung all my bells then, because when I bought the ticket it stated reservation is not necessary and also not possible.
Picture of reservations:
But what really stroke me as odd was that I was the only one on the train.
Now, if John Barrowman had sung his song just a week earlier, I might have grabbed my camera and do the same. Here is the hilarious video of John inventing a new song:
"I'm the only one on the train"
http://www.twitvid.com/GMEYZ
It already was 17.50 PM and still the train had not moved. I thought, the British trains are quite late, compared to German ones ;) but at least some people had arrived now. And through the speakers it was announced that on this train off-peak tickets were not valid. Oops! So I took all my baggage and left the train. Turned out they had changed platforms which I hadn't realized. I had come kinda from the side to the platform, and the sign with all the info was right at the beginning.
Still, nothing was lost, I managed to take another train which left half an hour later. In Peterborough itself I took a taxi from the station to the hotel, and no more mishappenings happened that day.
Pictures of my hotel room:
Picture of my meal on Sunday evening:
And now to the travel back on Monday. I had ordered a taxi to get me to the station but then it turned out two other German girls were leaving at the same time, so we ended up sharing. Thankfully I got there a bit early, because when we arrived they said, three hours delay and no trains to London King's Cross - apparently someone had been hit on the rail. Bummer. I already saw the plane leaving Heathrow without me. The two girls fared better, they wanted to get to Stansted anyway.
So we went to the information and I got the money back for my previously bought ticket and then bought a new one which would have taken me to Cambridge and there I could catch a train to London. This would be the train the two girls also were on. One even did check me in on her iPhone. But just when we wanted to board they announced they suddenly had a train to King's Cross at the other platform in five minutes. So we hastily said good-bye and I went on the other train. So in the end I arrived at King's Cross right at time, only that my new ticket had costed me ten pounds more than the previous one. And nobody wanted to see it anyway.
At King's Cross I even had some time to walk around a bit, here is the newly built section, which looks amazing:
And there also was a big screen with all the trains and their platforms and a lot of people staring at it and trying to figure out where to go next. If I only had known this on my way to Peterborough, but then again there had been no time to wander around much. Well, I know for next time!
I even managed to find platform 9 3/4 for all the Harry Potter-fans among us:
So, I arrived early in Heathrow, but of course the plane left late again. As usual. The reason this time was that they had someone needing help getting out of the plane and it took a while till the helpers arrived. Well. It meant for me that I had to run in Frankfurt. We arrived at 17.05 PM and on my ticket it said the gate closes at 17.20 PM. Did I mention it was a long walk from terminal B to A? One that involves taking an elevator, twice? So you can't even take one of the cars. Did I mention that I had to go through security again? (luckily there was no line and I could move straight through) And the faster walkways also were not working due to reconstruction work. So, I ran. And when I finally arrived out of breath exactly at 17.20 PM - they hadn't even started boarding yet.
Took another ten minutes before they started. I was coughing all the time. But at least I didn't need to sleep on the airport that evening.
That's it, that's my travel report. Wonder what will happen in two weeks when we fly to London for the John Barrowman concert. At least I know the way from B to A and vice versa now ;)
.
.
http://dieastra.livejournal.com/42788.html
But is anyone interested in hearing about the actuall travel? Considering how much went wrong, it is amazing I still got everywhere in time. Hear my story:
The plane in Dresden was supposed to leave at 12.50 PM. When I arrived they said, 20 minutes later, due to some repair work. Now I appreciate that they won't let us fly with broken plane, but then again I only had one hour in Frankfurt before the next plane left, and whoever has done the walk from terminal A to B knows it is a long one.
Amazing enough we still arrived at the right time, maybe we had some wind from behind! Oh, while I was on the plane they announced that it was now gate B47 I had to go to, not B23. Small detail.
So I made it, and even had time to eat a sandwich with Parma ham. Out of all the other options, this was the cheapest one. Tell you, Frankfurt airport is quite an expensive area!
Thanks to my co-worker I only had taken hand-luggage with me, as it would have been awful if I made the connection but my suitcase missed getting on the second plane. So when I arrived in Heathrow I could go straight to the tube station and go to King's Cross station. There I wanted to take the train to Peterborough. And there it was where all went wrong.
I had bought the train tickets on the internet, it was an off-peak train ticket, and I had a list of all trains I could go on with it. So I arrived at 17.30 PM and the next train would be 17.40 PM from platform 4. I went to the platform, I found the train, it even had a sign "Peterborough" at its side. I admit I found it a bit odd that I could not see any sign with the actual starting time. In Germany, there are several of those over the length of the platform. But I got into the train anyway and even managed to find a seat that wasn't reserved.
Picture of the Not!Train:
Which should have rung all my bells then, because when I bought the ticket it stated reservation is not necessary and also not possible.
Picture of reservations:
But what really stroke me as odd was that I was the only one on the train.
Now, if John Barrowman had sung his song just a week earlier, I might have grabbed my camera and do the same. Here is the hilarious video of John inventing a new song:
"I'm the only one on the train"
http://www.twitvid.com/GMEYZ
It already was 17.50 PM and still the train had not moved. I thought, the British trains are quite late, compared to German ones ;) but at least some people had arrived now. And through the speakers it was announced that on this train off-peak tickets were not valid. Oops! So I took all my baggage and left the train. Turned out they had changed platforms which I hadn't realized. I had come kinda from the side to the platform, and the sign with all the info was right at the beginning.
Still, nothing was lost, I managed to take another train which left half an hour later. In Peterborough itself I took a taxi from the station to the hotel, and no more mishappenings happened that day.
Pictures of my hotel room:
Picture of my meal on Sunday evening:
And now to the travel back on Monday. I had ordered a taxi to get me to the station but then it turned out two other German girls were leaving at the same time, so we ended up sharing. Thankfully I got there a bit early, because when we arrived they said, three hours delay and no trains to London King's Cross - apparently someone had been hit on the rail. Bummer. I already saw the plane leaving Heathrow without me. The two girls fared better, they wanted to get to Stansted anyway.
So we went to the information and I got the money back for my previously bought ticket and then bought a new one which would have taken me to Cambridge and there I could catch a train to London. This would be the train the two girls also were on. One even did check me in on her iPhone. But just when we wanted to board they announced they suddenly had a train to King's Cross at the other platform in five minutes. So we hastily said good-bye and I went on the other train. So in the end I arrived at King's Cross right at time, only that my new ticket had costed me ten pounds more than the previous one. And nobody wanted to see it anyway.
At King's Cross I even had some time to walk around a bit, here is the newly built section, which looks amazing:
And there also was a big screen with all the trains and their platforms and a lot of people staring at it and trying to figure out where to go next. If I only had known this on my way to Peterborough, but then again there had been no time to wander around much. Well, I know for next time!
I even managed to find platform 9 3/4 for all the Harry Potter-fans among us:
So, I arrived early in Heathrow, but of course the plane left late again. As usual. The reason this time was that they had someone needing help getting out of the plane and it took a while till the helpers arrived. Well. It meant for me that I had to run in Frankfurt. We arrived at 17.05 PM and on my ticket it said the gate closes at 17.20 PM. Did I mention it was a long walk from terminal B to A? One that involves taking an elevator, twice? So you can't even take one of the cars. Did I mention that I had to go through security again? (luckily there was no line and I could move straight through) And the faster walkways also were not working due to reconstruction work. So, I ran. And when I finally arrived out of breath exactly at 17.20 PM - they hadn't even started boarding yet.
Took another ten minutes before they started. I was coughing all the time. But at least I didn't need to sleep on the airport that evening.
That's it, that's my travel report. Wonder what will happen in two weeks when we fly to London for the John Barrowman concert. At least I know the way from B to A and vice versa now ;)
.
.