A Little Adventure - Part 2, From London to Brussels to Liege to Verviers to Aachen

Continuing from where I left off...

When you are travelling to a certain place on a Monday morning you expect the trains and buses to be relatively empty, the bus and train stations to be a little less crowded... So when I reached London's St. Pancras railway station I was shocked to see the queue which had materialized to board the train Eurostar. The Eurostar takes people from London to Europe to mainly two destinations, Paris and Brussels. Mine was supposed to take me to Brussels. I had a legit ticket but with number of people in the queue waiting for their turn to board the train, it was clear to me that I wasn't getting anywhere near Eurostar that day.

I had no idea that there were so many people who would be travelling on a Monday morning. Of course it was the mid-December and most of these travelers wanted to get back home for the holidays or had their tickets rescheduled for the next train. This particular queue extended all the way from St. Pancras station up to the British Library i.e., almost half a kilometer long. People were standing there from 5 a.m. in the morning, I had reached there at 9.30 a.m. I had nowhere to go in London, had no friends or relatives who stayed there, so once again I was stuck there, it was either the Eurostar or spend the night at the station for me. Of course the anxiety and disappointment of not being able to see my husband after going through so much was weighing down on me. I cannot explain what was going through my head, my eyes were full of tears. I started calling up my parents and parents-in-law in India to inform them of my situation, they started calling up everyone they knew who could have anyone they knew staying in London to arrange for an overnight stay for me. I called up my husband to inform about this situation and broke down. We gave up all our hopes of seeing each other and being with each other. I had just finished up my call with my husband when I saw that the plastic tape that was holding this line in order had come off from right where I was standing. I took it as a sign and cut the line. I am the kind of girl who has never cut a line in her entire life, and in that moment, I made a snap decision and cut the line. I still feel bad about it. A lady in front of me tried to yell at me for doing that but decided not to when she saw that I was on the verge of bawling. When I settled down into the line, which was moving at a snail's pace by the way, I suddenly realized that I had to pee really bad. Now of course I couldn't leave the line. God it was exhausting and painful. Stuff we do for love!!

After standing in that god forsaken queue for what seemed like an eternity, I was still quite far from the check-in gates when a few people from Eurostar staff came running towards us and announced that the last and only train to Brussels from London is about to leave and who ever had a ticket to Brussels should be on that train. So a bunch of us ran towards the check-in gates dragging our luggage, completing the check-in, security and immigration formalities in a flash, and just like that we successfully boarded the train. I called my folks and my husband and informed all of them the good news. And then after what seemed like a lifetime went to the restroom in the train. The relief that I felt was stronger than the happiness I was feeling about seeing the love of my life. But this ordeal does not end here. See when the whole of UK was put under gridlock, I did not know that Europe was under gridlock too. My train was taking me to Brussels, while my husband was stuck at a city called Liege in Beligum and had no way of coming to Brussels to pick me up as none of the train were plying out of Liege to Brussels. So, at around 7.30 p.m. I reached Brussels, all ecstatic and bleary eyed with the anticipation of seeing the man that I love. We kept talking to each other on the phone and he informed me about his situation. I waited until 8.30 p.m. at a cafe in Brussels station. Then we decided that I should go to Liege as trains were still leaving from Brussels to other cities. So I, trusting my unique sense of intuition coupled with a weird sense of direction got to the correct platform on Brussels station from where the train to Liege was leaving. It took me 40 terrifying mins to reach Liege as a first time traveler in Europe. But when I reached and saw his face for the first time in almost 3 months after our wedding, I forgot all about my survicle and sciatica pains, the fact that I was nowhere near Germany made no difference to me, as far as I was concerned I was home. :)

The display at the Liege station was flashing the details of a train back to Aachen, Germany which was supposed to leave at 9.30 p.m. As we kept looking at it, in a few moments the time being displayed changed from 9.30 p.m. to cancelled. It was pretty clear to us that we were going to be stuck at Liege. My husband suggested that we should go to a hotel for the night and try to get back to Aachen the next day or go to the border town of Verviers which is only 40 kms from Aachen and take a cab from there. There was a Turkish family at the station who also wanted to go to Aachen and were weak in English, so I suggested that we should go to Verviers together and try getting to Aachen from there and take these people with us so that we could split the cab fare. It sounded like a good idea until we all reached Verviers. Now being a European border town, Verviers was nothing like any of the other European cities. The station was not well covered, the restrooms were non-functioning and LOCKED!! The vending machines were not working, and we were again stuck, but this time it was not just me and my husband, we had a family with little kids with us. The situation was much worse than before and we had to find a way out of that town. My husband, the father and the eldest son from that family went outside the station to find a cab, but no one would take us to Aachen due to the grid lock. There was only one 24/7 kiosk shop open outside and the taxi dealer was not picking up the phone. We waited and waited for somebody to help us but the complete town was shut down. By 12 a.m. we all had given up all hopes and were thinking of staying the night at a hotel there, if something was open. At that time I went outside the station to just be with my husband for sometime. I noticed that the owner of the 24/7 kiosk shop was a south-east asian man. I asked my husband if he had talked to him. He said yeah and that this guy was from Bangladesh. My husband is the most intelligent and skillful guy I know, but he is lousy at being street smart and getting his way. I rushed to the shop and talked to that guy in Hindi. I explained to him about our situation and told him that we had a lady and two young children with us who could use some warm place until we found a ride back home. He obliged and offered us some chairs to sit in his shop were there was a heavenly heating system.

We were just settling down there when at around 12.30 a.m. another south-east asian guy came into the shop. He was a pick-up truck guy who was there to drop some liquor off at the shop. He was of Pakistani origin. The owner of the shop talked to this guy and explained our situation and asked him if he could take us across the border of Belgium-Germany to Aachen. He was reluctant at first but after looking at our harrowed expressions he obliged too. He made sure that we all had our passports and visas in place and loaded us all in his truck and drove us to Aachen. During the journey on the highway I saw why Europe was under gridlock. It was so dangerous to be out on the road at that time. Everywhere you turned you saw snow and ice. Thick thick ice. My god it was scary and the snowstorm made it worse. So we all reached Aachen in one piece, we thanked the kind Pakistani stranger, who went by the name Khan bhai, for all his help, paid him with all the money we had in our pockets and bid him goodbye with wide grins on our faces.

Me and my husband reached his tiny but beautiful one room kitchen apartment in Aachen's city center, near the Dom cathedral, at around 2 a.m. in the morning. I told him that I was famished and he said that he had cooked for me a Keralite delicacy called Avial for me before leaving for Brussels that morning and had made a pact with God that I will be there to enjoy it with him. I couldn't control my glee when I heard that. We had our first dinner together after 3 months of staying apart. After everything we went through in the past couple of days, this moment meant everything to me. And I proved it to myself that if we want something with all our might and we put in all our thoughts and efforts into something, we would get it eventually. It is just a matter of time. And I also learnt an important lesson about my own life, that things that go perfectly well from the beginning, have the best chances of getting screwed up in the end. So, after that one time, whenever I faced difficulties in the beginning of a journey or a test or a project, I never worried too much, because I knew that it will have to work out in the end. :)

A little adventure - Part 1, Europe's worst blizzard, gridlock and journey to Birmingham and back

When I got married to my boyfriend of 2 and half years, I had no idea that we were embarking on such an adventurous life. I always thought of my boyfriend as a soft guy who plans ahead for everything and doesn't like taking risks. This nature of his is in stark contrast of mine, as I am quite the go-with-the-flow/happy-go-lucky kinda girl. Before I got married, I had no clue about the importance of saving money, making investments, the share market or all the other big financial terms he used to use in front of me, in the hope that I would learn these things from him. 

The first year after our wedding, we spent apart in different countries, me on the Island of Britain, doing my Masters degree, and him working in a city called Aachen (about which I had never heard before he was deputed there) in Germany. The first couple of months we did everything to justify our decision of living apart to our families and friends, but each day it started becoming more and more difficult to stay away from each other. We got married in August 2010, he left for Germany in September and I left for the UK in October, and by December we were going slightly mad for not being able to be with each other.

So we decided that for the Christmas vacations I would visit him in Germany. At that time I was this scared little person who would not even board a bus in her own University city because she was not sure where the bus would take her. I know, it is lame, but this is the truth. My husband used to accompany me virtually through google earth whenever I had to take a bus journey within or outside my city.

In November 2010, I got my schengen visa stamped without any glitches and delays, and I was pretty psyched about travelling to Germany in December. A little background on my life, the no-glitches/delays thing never happens to me without any reason. I always have a rule, if my ride is smooth until a certain point in time, I know I am going to be pushed into a ditch or a well the next moment. Okay so continuing my travel saga, I was supposed to board a flight from Birmingham to Dusseldorf on a Saturday mid-morning. I had my tickets, my visa and all my bags where packed according to the 25 kgs of luggage allowance. 

I started from Leicester to Birmingham on one of the local trains. I had never traveled on these trains before. So I didnt even know how to open the doors when your station had arrived. So obviously I missed my station, I know this is lame too, but I had a lot of luggage and by the time I dragged myself and my luggage to the door the train had already left Birmingham to Coventry. So now I was in total panic and to make matters worse it had started snowing continuously, and at that time I had no idea what that snowstorm was turning into. So I got down at Coventry all wide eyed and teary eyed... Thankfully had the sense to board another train back to Birmingham. Somehow scrambled my way to the airport in one piece. Checked-in and got my boarding pass and settled down at the lounge waiting for my turn to be called to board the flight. That's when my ordeal started. The first time I glanced outside the airport's waiting lounge, I couldn't see any air crafts as it was snowing so heavily, all I could see was the white snow, which was fascinating to me being an Indian girl brought up nowhere near snow. Suddenly all the displays in the airport started showing that all the outgoing flights had been delayed by half an hour which gradually increased to one hour then to two hours and then all the displays flashed that all the flights had been cancelled. Even at that time I had no clue that I was stuck in the worst blizzard of its kind in Europe in that decade. I again dragged my luggage down to the check-in counters, in my desperation to get to Germany, I was ready to board any flight at any time out of UK, I was even ready to stay at the airport until that time. I had only £100 in cash with me and as luck would have it, my card got blocked for god knows what reason, my phone got completely discharged and I was stuck heaving and dragging my very heavy luggage around the airport which had become a battle ground. As a student you don't have much money at your disposal. I had no eaten the whole day because of all the anxiety and anticipation of travelling alone and now my empty stomach had started making questionable noises. By 3 p.m. it was dark outside and I still had no clue where I was going to stay the night. Somehow I used my head, got my cell phone somewhat charged, booked myself a bus ticket back to Leicester and set out to find a bus that would take me home. Now the funny part was I was oblivious to the fact that the whole of UK was under gridlock because of the blizzard which meant that no buses or trains were leaving from any of the stations. I boarded a bus, which had a kind bus-driver lady, who dropped me at the Birmingham bus station from where I hoped to get a bus back home. But no buses were leaving from the station at that time. I tried to flag a taxi to take me to the Birmingham train station, a kind lady offered me a lift and dropped me just outside the station in her taxi. I again dragged my very heavy luggage up to the station through all the snow between my survicle and sciatica pain... I got to the station from where I booked a ticket to Leicester. When I reached the platform I saw all the passengers lined up, sitting on their luggage or on any dry surface they could find, waiting for the train authorities to put in a train to Leicester, because as luck may have it, all the trains had been pulled off tracks due to heavy snow and low visibility. So I sat there too, and completely gave up my hope of reaching the safety of my dorm room. It must have been half an hour since I was sitting there, a train pulled up on our platform. It was not supposed to go anywhere and was going to be parked there for the rest of the night. All the passengers waiting to go to Leicester jumped into this train in desperation and hope that they would let this one go. When the authorities came to remove us from the train, all of us defied them and said that if they don't let the train go we would just sit inside it as it is at least warmer than the platform. Finally they obliged and said they would let this one go. Oh I can't explain the sense of relief I felt when the train moved from Birmingham. Within an hour I was back in Leicester and in my dorm room. I had bought a Subway sandwich that I devoured and slept like a baby that night.

Before I left for Birmingham the previous day I had emptied all of my food rations, rice, lentils, vegetables, fruits as I was not hoping to come back for the next 20 days. So when I got up the next day, which was a Sunday, I didn't even have milk in the fridge to prepare some tea. I was famished and set out to hunt for an open shop or market nearby. Of course everything was closed, between it being a Sunday and the country being gridlocked and all. I was on the verge of collapsing when the kind uncle from the Pakistani shop down the road noticed my predicament and opened his shop for sometime. I grabbed whatever I could, cooked something and ate like an animal until I was full. During all this time, me and my husband were talking and we decided that he would book my ticket on Eurostar, the only train plying between the UK across the English Channel and Europe. I had to get to London to catch this said train. So the next day i.e., a Monday I set out to catch the train from London's St. Pancras station. Little did I know, a brand new ordeal was waiting to be unraveled for me in London.