a german adventure (planes, trains and automobiles)
So. On Wednesday afternoon I got on a plane over to Frankfurt in Germany for an all day meeting on Thursday in Mannheim. I got there Wednesday night and went to the meeting yesterday. At about lunch time, we surveyed the howling gail outside and thought, 'hmmmm, better check the airport and see if any flights have been cancelled'. Ha! The flight to Amsterdam had been cancelled (I was supposed to be getting a connecting flight to Birmingham from there). I was with two of the people from the Hull office, so we decided the best thing to do was to get on a train to Amsterdam, stay the night there and then fly in the morning because frankly, I didn't really fancy flying in that weather, even if there had been another flight I could have got on.
The travel lady at work booked us some more flights and a hotel in Amsterdam and off we set on the train. Unfortunately we had to change at Cologne and it wasn't until we got off the train at Cologne that we were told that all trains in Germany had stopped running! All the trains! So then we thought we might be able to hire a car and drive, but all the rental companies had run out of cars. We conceded defeat (this was at around 6pm) and decided that we had no choice but to stay in Cologne for the night. The nice travel lady in Hull managed to find us a hotel near the airport in Cologne and booked us yet another set of flights for the morning, this time to Heathrow.
We then had to get to the hotel. Up until this point I was finding it hard to believe that the weather was as bad as it was supposed to be. We went out of the train station and stood in a massive queue to get a taxi in the driving wind and rain, watching pieces of scaffolding blowing off the cathedral (which was rather lovely and I'd like to see it again under better circumstances). There were hardly any kerfuffles in the taxi queue - I would have expected near violence if we'd have been in Britain, a fact which probably says more about British people than German - and after about half an hour of being windswept got taken to the hotel by a circuitous route because a bridge was blocked. We sat in a lovely little bar there, had dinner, some drinks and went to bed. There were no problems this morning - we got an early flight to Heathrow, picked up a rental car and I was dropped off home on the way to Hull. And if anyone thought I'd be in work today they had another think coming!
And now I'm home. Hurrah! That was quite an exciting trip for my first time in Germany. Although I am a little sad that I didn't get to cross the Germany/Netherlands border on a train.
Meanwhile in Nottingham, two of the garden sheds with hay in at the field were completely disintegrated and blown away (remembering here that we still don't have a barn after last years fire - just five three garden sheds). Bugger.
ETA: Blimey. I haven't posted for two weeks!! I think that must be a first!
The travel lady at work booked us some more flights and a hotel in Amsterdam and off we set on the train. Unfortunately we had to change at Cologne and it wasn't until we got off the train at Cologne that we were told that all trains in Germany had stopped running! All the trains! So then we thought we might be able to hire a car and drive, but all the rental companies had run out of cars. We conceded defeat (this was at around 6pm) and decided that we had no choice but to stay in Cologne for the night. The nice travel lady in Hull managed to find us a hotel near the airport in Cologne and booked us yet another set of flights for the morning, this time to Heathrow.
We then had to get to the hotel. Up until this point I was finding it hard to believe that the weather was as bad as it was supposed to be. We went out of the train station and stood in a massive queue to get a taxi in the driving wind and rain, watching pieces of scaffolding blowing off the cathedral (which was rather lovely and I'd like to see it again under better circumstances). There were hardly any kerfuffles in the taxi queue - I would have expected near violence if we'd have been in Britain, a fact which probably says more about British people than German - and after about half an hour of being windswept got taken to the hotel by a circuitous route because a bridge was blocked. We sat in a lovely little bar there, had dinner, some drinks and went to bed. There were no problems this morning - we got an early flight to Heathrow, picked up a rental car and I was dropped off home on the way to Hull. And if anyone thought I'd be in work today they had another think coming!
And now I'm home. Hurrah! That was quite an exciting trip for my first time in Germany. Although I am a little sad that I didn't get to cross the Germany/Netherlands border on a train.
Meanwhile in Nottingham, two of the garden sheds with hay in at the field were completely disintegrated and blown away (remembering here that we still don't have a barn after last years fire - just five three garden sheds). Bugger.
ETA: Blimey. I haven't posted for two weeks!! I think that must be a first!