Travel Adventure Stories.

There's more to tell about the Leiden trip: Travel Adventure Stories!

I'm not someone who goes on Big Damn Adventures - I've never done trips into really far-away foreign countries with really different cultures. No hiking through China or India for me, no Turkey or Russia. But I'm fond of the little adventures. The small things that are still exciting, but there's nothing that can go desastrously wrong - and I am utterly happy when things do not go wrong, or the stories have a happy end after all.

Little adventures like travelling via the train with an interesting itinerary. In order to get to Leiden in time to have a look at the Stockings exhibition, the solution was to leave early in the evening of Thursday to catch a train in the "wrong" direction, to board the night train in Passau and then wake up in Düsseldorf. From there, it's easily possible to arrive in Leiden at noon.

I had booked one bed in an all-female compartment, which is always interesting as you never know whom you will end up sharing with. (In this case, there was only one other lady in the 3-person compartment, from Vienna, and she was very nice.) We only chatted for a very short time in the morning, as she left the train one stop earlier than I did.

The ticket for the sleeper included the bed space plus a goodie bag with some snacks, a small bottle of sparkling wine, a pair of house slippers (yes, really), a pen (to fill out the breakfast order), a pair of earplugs, a small muffin, a bottle of water, and a towel (sealed in a plastic bag) with NightJet design.

I was amazed to hear from the conductor during breakfast that these were all intended for the passengers to take away with them, and that whatever was not taken would not be re-packed, but thrown away. So I packed my towel. And the snacks (I would have taken those anyways), and the slippers, and the remainder of the goodie bag contents of my compartmentmate, who was already off the train.

Fast forward to the way back from Leiden, where I took an early train back to get home by afternoon. I had packed some food for the way, leftovers from Chinese takeout shared with friends on Saturday evening, and the bag with the food sat in the front flap pocket of my backpack. Which, in the train, went on to the shelf for luggage... until I changed trains in Duisburg (to get into the next train early, as they were predicted to be very full, and I was very much hoping to get a seat for the ride).

I did manage to get a seat in the next ICE which was not reserved... and there I discovered that the bag with food had quietly and sneakily fallen out of the backpack front, and thus still sat in the other train. Which made me sad for three reasons at once: I was without the lunch I had been really looking forward to (as yesterday's food was delicious with a capital D); I was without my trusty and very convenient re-usable silicone doggy bag, which would probably be thrown away by some train worker at the train's end station; and the food would also be wasted.

So I thought about trying to get it back via the lost-and-found service of DB... only to find out that a) they usually don't care for things worth less than 15 €, b) they do charge for their services, and c) they also charge for calling their service phone number (almost 2 € per minute from my mobile). Sigh.

And then I remembered that one of my friends lives in Karlsruhe, which is the end point of said train. Thanks to the magic of modern communication, I reached him in time (facebook can actually be useful once in a while), and he had, indeed, not any plans for lunch yet...

To my utter delight, he did manage to rescue the bag with food from the train, and I hope he enjoyed the meal! Also, this means we'll have to meet some day, for me to get the bag back, and to celebrate the successful rescue action. This shows that it's a good thing to know people at all places in the world...

It was also a good thing that the night train had supplied me with the snacks, and that my friends had handed me some fruit and extra cookies to take along on my trip back when I packed the lunch - because these had not been in the front pocket of the backpack. They were safely stored in the main compartment, and saved me from getting really hungry on the train. Hooray for friends!