When I lived in Europe in the 2000s the German reputation for efficiency extended to their trains, but apparently at some point since then the Deutsche Bahn has gone woke, lost touch with its fascist roots, and become very unreliable. No more train on time for you, Mr. German.
So, like, whatever, I’d heard rumblings before my gf and I landed in Frankfurt and didn’t think much of it when I’d booked our tickets to Utrecht. Ooh German countryside, dis gun b fun.
There was rain and so I stressed that morning, knowing that we had a long day with two transfers and three months’ worth of luggage in tow, and ofc I was the one to lug all the gage. Funness of being the big strong man with big sexy muscles.
I just knew we’d have problems, so when we were in Dusseldorf after one delay behind us, I was wary. But the train not only wasn’t on time, the sign didn’t even have the name of our train at all. Anywhere on any electric sign, like it was a ghost train.
And then the police came, shooed everyone off the platform just as we were going up the escalator. When we got to the platform, a German polizei or whatever it’s called (police in German, I’m trying to paint a picture here) yelled at us in German. Then switched to England and said we needed to get off the platform or we’d get thrown in jail. “I need to take the escalator, I have a disability!” I said, truly (as in I truly said it I don’t truly have a disability (truly, I don’t (look just ignore your lying eyes))).
We got back down to the underground level, and there were hundreds of people standing and waiting. An electric sign now had the train on it, but no notice of when the train would come.
About twenty minutes later, still no notice. I went to inside the information office. There was a queue of about thirty people.
“Excuse me!” I turned to the group and yelled. Everyone stopped and looked at me.
“Please raise your hand if you’re trying to board the Amsterdam train!” a couple timid people raised their hands. “Come on!!!” and about half of the line had their hands up.
“Excuse me!” the woman behind the desk exclaimed, Germanly. “You must wait in li—“
I turned to her. “We ALL have the same problem. Just tell us all now, this train has been delayed for a long time. When will it arrive?”
“Soon.”
“Do you know when it will arrive?”
“No.”
I nodded, left the information office, went to my girlfriend. “Yeah, this is chaos, we should just get the fuck out of here.”
Then we stood with the crowd looking at the electric sign as I got my phone out. “Well,” I said loudly, opening the app, “this is the worst experience a Jew has had waiting for a train in Germany in 80 years.”
Uber took a few tries to get a driver, but after about 10 minutes it was ordered. Sign still didn’t say when the train was coming.
“Do you have a guess when it’ll arrive?” an English woman near me suddenly asked.
“Good question,” I said, and then saw my Uber was 5 minutes away. “But we’re taking an Uber.”
GF and I left, waited outside for a couple of minutes with our fifty thousand pieces of luggage because she’s a fucking evil human being and finally got the car.
Yemeni guy, we talked about politics and religion for the three hour trip. Was fucking amazing dude, tipped him like 50 euros iirc.
Utrecht was awesome. Better than Amsterdam.