I was almost arrested in Germany and I slept on the street in Copenhagen

As I am typing this I am sitting on the deck of the ms Rotterdam safe and sound with a room and food. Just wanted to get that out of the way before I tell you of my trip to Copenhagen so there will not be any worrying throughout your reading. Are you intrigued now? I hope so.

The train ride started on Aug 7 at 5 PM but I would like to recap what I did on the day of Aug 7th. That was the day we made that grueling hike through some seaside mountain range on an Italian nature preserve. It pushed me to limits I was not away I had. That being said, I showered and changed and hoped on a train at 5 pm heading to, well heading to a lot of places before arriving in Copenhagen. Here is a breakdown of the stops I had to make on my way.

Seaside village that has some name but I could not tell you what, other than it is 2 stops from Carlo’s town and three stops from where I needed to transfer. (45 minute train ride)
Transfer at Genoa Piazza Principal to a train to Milano wait time is 3 hours train ride is 2 hours.
In Milano take a commuter train to Verona (3 hours) Arrive in Verona at 10:30 PM leave at 1 am
Verona to Munich from 1 AM to 6:30 am.
Munich to Hamburg from noon to 6 pm
Hamburg to Copenhagen from 7 pm to 12:11 AM.
After all was said and done I had traveled by train for pretty much 31 hours straight. The first part of the trip did not bode well. As I arrived in Genoa I went to the information station and asked how I can get on a train to Milano. They told me to go to track number 14 and the train would leave in a few minutes. On the train to Milano I immediately noticed something was wrong. All the seats were in cabins and they all had numbers assigned to them. I knew this was a train that required a reservation. I wish the ladies at the information desk had told me this. At this point it was too late to go back to the station and buy a reservation. I had read in my Eurail guide book that you can always purchase a reservation from the conductor on the train. The down side is the cost increases when you have to go through a conductor. As I did not have a choice I went in search of the guy. I found him all the way in the front of the train. I asked him where I should sit if I did not have a ticket. I think this guy must be the only train conductor I have met on my entire trip that does not know a word of English. I know it is very ethnocentric of me to assume he would know English however as an official representative of an international rail system where a great many customers are tourists that speak only English as a common language I do have a higher expectation that the conductor would know some English. As luck would have it not only did he not know English but he took this as an opportunity to educate me in the use of the Italian railway system. He spent the next 25 minutes balling me out and drawing pictures in the air explaining that I needed a reservation on certain trains and not on others when using a Eurail pass. All of this I of course already knew but I sat there patiently until he got to the part where I had to pay. He must have tired of berating me when he eventually came up with a price. It was 5 Euros for the reservation and 8 Euros for the privilege of his chastising me. All together 13 Euros; bummer for me I guess but, at least I was on my way out of this nightmare train place.

I arrived in Milano with enough time to grab a bite to eat across the street and get ready for my next trip in several hours. I did attempt one more time to find a more direct route to Copenhagen. I received similar hospitality at the ticket window. One thing the rude dude said that I loved, when I asked if there was a more direct route was, “if you want direct take a plane this is the train station”. I returned the favor of his kindness by interrupting him in mid sentence with “whatever, moron I’m outta here” I said this as I turned and walked away. He never did get my name I was careful about this because I had a feeling it would turn out as it did. Maybe this was a self fulfilling prophecy; I guess I will never know.

When I arrived in Verona I was just in time to watch the cleaning staff close everything in the train station. This includes the doors to get outside the station. If you wanted to leave you had to walk down the tracks for several hundred yards and go through a broken section of fence. This did not matter much to me as I needed to be inside the station to catch my next train at 1 am into Muchien (Munich). The one problem I had was I really needed a restroom. Thankfully I was able to rely upon my experience on my bicycling trip. Those of you who have read the lessons learned in http://www.bike4d.org know that “the world is my toilet”. I did have a nice conversation with a jewel exporter from India. The guy was totally nice to me. He was waiting for a ride from a friend back home. His train decided to skip his stop so he was stuck 30km from where he should have been and was forced to wait for his ride. After he left the train was no long in coming.

At this point it was 1 in the morning and I was exhausted. You may also remember that I was not able to get a sleeping car on this train, nor was I able to get first class. The only seat available to me was a second class seat in some cabin. I was not looking forward to this. I have learned to look at the doors on the trains as they approach to catch what coach number is assigned to each one. That way I know if I need to race to the left or the right to get on the correct coach. This time I did not see my train number so I showed my ticket to one of the workers. He told me to head all the way to the right. This was not a long train stop so I really had to hurry. As I reached the end of the train NONE of them had my number on the door. ARG!! I ran bag and all back towards the front. They blew the whistle for all aboard and after double checking that the marquee confirmed this was the correct train, I hopped on. Now I was stuck in a very HOT very crowded train with a huge pack on. I reached a traffic jam in the hall way and just stopped. It seemed that everyone was comfortable just sitting or standing in the aisles and there was no way to get past. I struck up a conversation with a guy in front of me after he said something in English. Turns out he was from Richmond, VA and was in the military for only a few more months. He is currently stationed some place in Germany. Another train lady passed me by and I had to actually block her path to have her respond to my requests for assistance.

We danced back and forth for a while before she realized she would have to acknowledge me before I would let her pass. Then she looked up. I showed her my ticket and she pointed forward through the masses. Questioning I looked at her, then the mass of people, then at my bag. She gestured that I could not stay there and actually shoved me forward a little through the people, well more like into the people. Thankfully I was friends with the Army dude in front of me and he stopped me before I toppled over any other people.

I decided to take some action here because I really wanted to put my pack away and sit down. I dropped my heavy pack and put my smaller back pack on my back. I then hefted the larger one above the heads of the crowd and took a deep breath. In my loud most American voice I could muster I started saying “excuse me”, “Coming through”, and “move now! Thanks”. The crowd either parted or I forced them into the wall and made my way past. I think I perhaps did not represent my country very well but I did get past the throng of people and into my train car. I made it to my cabin and I think I must have been in with some sort of reptiles.

These guys kept the windows closed tightly and the curtains drawn so that the room was a sauna. I tried napping and I could hardly breathe in there let alone fall asleep. I stepped out into the cool hallway and noticed several other people sleeping in the corridor. In the words of Ronald Weasly I thought this was “brilliant”. I laid my bag down as a pillow and fell fast asleep. My next waking moment was of the conductor asking for tickets. I showed mine and fell asleep again. At some point we must have crossed into Germany because the next thing I remember was some guy kicking my bag yelling at me in German. I was annoyed and probably looked worse. I glanced back and said “WHAT?” He yelled more in German and I rolled over and closed my eyes. Not a good way to make friends by the way. He kicked my bag again and I propped myself on my elbow and said “What do you?” The guy was dressed in wrinkled pants and a t-shirt with another unbuttoned short overtop with a flower print on it. The only thing about him that looked semi official was his two way radio. He switched to English and said “Police give me your passport”. I grinned because I am not an idiot and replied “yeah sure, whatever man” and started to pick up my bag and move away from him. He repeated himself in English again and I backed away further. Then he opened the cabin next to me and said it in German and produced some green card. The occupants in the cabin all responded immediately with their passports. Oops. Turns out the guy really was a cop, my bad. He ordered me again to produce a passport (he kind of reminded me of the Nazi guys in the concentration camps in the movies) this time I replied for fear of getting locked away and sent to some unknown jail. He radioed in my name; this was different than anyone else he had spoken to. Then he asks in a not so polite manner if in my country people slept on the floors of trains as I was. Trying to be diplomatic I restrained myself from say “no in my country we make sure people have seats in air conditioned and comfortable cabins so they don’t need to sleep on the floor”. Again I did not say that. Instead I explained that my cabin was very hot and I was very tired and that was my only option for sleep. To which he replied “well then perhaps you had better stay in your own country and not travel in mine. I hope you leave Germany very soon” He handed back my passport and I partially saluted him as Nazis do as I walked past I mumbled “hey man in case you forgot, you lost the war”. I returned to my cabin before he cold respond, thankful to not be in jail and pissed off at the poorly dressed cop. The remainder of the trip to Munich was uneventful.

In Munich I was too tired to really do anything but sit for my 6 hour layover. I found a nice coffee shop attached to the train station and plugged into power to charge up and edit video. Most of the video you are seeing pop up here now was edited in that coffee shop in Munich, some was even filmed there.

My trip from Munich to Hamburg was pleasantly uneventful. I was able to rest and relax and really not do much of anything for 6 hours. After Hamburg I switched trains and headed to Copenhagen. The train I got on was so small and quaint. It was only three cars long and had a funny stub nosed front. The first class section was only half of the first car. Of course I grabbed a seat in first class because that is what my Eurail pass includes.

One of my neighbors on the train was a transplant from southern England and a pretty nice guy. The other was a native of Copenhagen but he spoke English fluently. We did not talk too much but rather exchanged courtesies over the tea and milk. I spent some time studying the travel book I have on Copenhagen, not because I wanted to visit the city but to find out where the cruise ships might be docked. This was the first city I have been to where I had no place to stay and no idea where I was supposed to go.

This is the city where I needed to hop on the cruise ship to start my interpreting work for twelve days. I knew the name of the ship I needed to be on and the date. That was about it. My friends on the train gave me directions on where the cruise ships should be docked. Basically they told me to leave the station turn left and keep walking for about an hour. They were not very confident but it was the only thing I had to go off of. So I hefted my rather large pack and headed off to the left. I passed through a pretty happening part of town with lots of lights and plenty of drunken people. I really longed to go and join in the revelry but I was on my way to an assignment and I would not miss the boat in the morning.

I walked for about an hour and at this point I was in a part of town that seemed to be utterly asleep. Keep in mind I arrived in Copenhagen at 12:11 in the morning. That is pretty much rock solid in the middle of the night. It was now 1 AM and I was hopefully closer to the cruise ships but I could not even see water. I had noticed the number 26 bus along the route I was walking. This at least allowed me safe passage back to the city I the morning when the busses opened. I felt pretty lost and lone and I was prepared to text home and get directions when I discovered my phone battery had died. My backup battery was not working and there was not a plug to be found anywhere.

At this point I felt pretty helpless and I was not sure what to do. I had been traveling for 31 hours and I had not slept in about 48 hours. I was exhausted, alone, and I had no way to contact anyone. I sat down on a rock at a corner and tried to contain my emotions. I did have the sense of mind to hit an ATM up on my way out of the bar district so at least I had some local currency. I was thankful for this when a taxi pulled up out of nowhere. The guy knew a little English and I had the Danish word for cruise ships on an index card. Unfortunately I also had the name of a local harbor on there as well. The taxi driver just stopped listening to me and took me to the harbor name on the card. The place was completely closed but at least I could see water and there was a tourist information store right there. I paid him and he left me in the middle of nowhere at 1:30 in the morning.

I had nothing to do now but just wait for the sun to come up because I had no watch to tell the time with. I found a corner at the bottom of some stairs that afforded me some protection from the wind. I curled up and fell into a fitful sleep on the street. I froze my but off and did everything short of using my sleeping bag to keep warm. It may have been the worst night’s sleep I have ever had in my life.

Finally the sun came up the stupid tourist shop never opened but my friend Bus number 26 was right there in front of me. I gave up and decided to take the bus back into town and ask people where the stupid ships come in. The driver was nice enough to tell me where the central station stop was (the second time we passed it he told me, it was a rather long bus ride). I found a tourist info center that was open. I explained I needed to get to my ship and they gave me directions.

Guess which buss I hopped on, that right the number 26. Turns out when I took that cab I was pretty close to the cruise terminal. I only had to walk another 15 minutes or so until I reached to correct place. I saw my ship and I was relieved to not have missed it. I was also very much looking forward to sleeping in a real bed and taking a long, long, long hot shower. I made it on board and met up with my team interpreter Roy.

One last thing before I finish up here. Roy had sent me an email about Copenhagen. I had not been able to get online for many days at this point so I had not received the email. Turns out he had arrived in Copenhagen a few days earlier. He had a very comfortable hotel room right next to the train station. He very graciously invited me to stay in the room since he knew I was arriving at midnight. Hmm bummer for me but it is something to laugh over I guess.