Lida, 14 januari 2012
Nederland , Roosendaal 7°

November 2011: Travel month.

I have traveled a lot. That’s what you get when you are living abroad and you want to see something or want to visit family and friends.

Before my expat life, I had to travel as well. First to go to school what was in another city and later I lived about 200 km from the family. In the beginning without a car I had to go by train. To get at the train station I went by bike, in all kind of weather conditions; rain, wind, snow and ice. The struggle was to be in time. And when you are finally there, you only have to sit and wait till you are at the final destination. Another bike was waiting for me or I went by bus. A hard part was if you need to get a connection. With only 3 minutes to go to another platform, I had to run with the luggage. The trains in Holland don’t have a schedule like Japan, were they always ride in time. It occurs often that the trains are delayed and when you have a connection train to catch…

No, going by plane looks more convenient. Ok, planes are delayed so now and then. But their schedule is very strict. By heavy storm or snow you cannot avoid delays. A delay occurs by a strike that is really annoying. But most of the time I am very lucky and I don’t need to deal with delays.

This month I travelled from Amsterdam to Hong Kong to visit my friend who had a newborn child. I was very lucky that I could join her by car to Guangzhou, China. This was so relaxed. Normally you have to go by foot trough customs; there can be very long lines. Now I had to give my passport to the driver of the car, he arranged all the other necessities, the customs official peeked into the car and it was done in less than 5 min. 10 days later I went back by train. I was just in time to catch it. Punctual 15.56 h, it took off.

I also visited Bremerhaven. I went there with Pieter by car. He had to work and I visited some museums; ‘Das Auswanderer Haus’ and ‘Das Klima Haus’. Again travelling but now inside a building; one trough time and the other one trough climate zones.
From Bremerhaven I went back by train. In Germany so far so good, trains on time and enough time to go to the other platform. At the first stopover in Holland, I had 2 min to go from one train to the other. I was lucky I could stay on the same platform. I prepared myself in time and stood at the exit before reaching the station to avoid a rush to get to the train. But I had time enough; my connection train had a delay of 15 min.: Welcome to Holland. To avoid more delays they decided not to stop at every station. I saw other passengers sigh…
The time we won by this we lost along the route. A train had problems in the other direction. It had to stop at the route. The passengers had to step out of the train and they were waiting in the field. All the passing trains had to go slower.
The stations we passed later were packed with passengers. You could see them thinking….What is going on….?
I reached my home, one hour later than scheduled. Left Germany at 9.30 h and was home at 18.00 h.

Wil je goedkoop naar het buitenland bellen? Bel dan via HalloBuitenland.nl