Murphy's Law

I need to formally apologize for my lack of updates. The good news is I have been neglecting the blog out of sheer busy-ness and having most of my time occupied with things to do, but now that I am alone again, I can return to my old friend, the Internet. This blog entry is only one story out of an eventful week, but once I have finished getting all my pictures from the camera, I will do a more general post. For now, you get this.

My sister arrived on Saturday, my boyfriend on Monday. Monica decided to leave on Thursday to go to Amsterdam by night-train. When it came time to take her to the train station, we were impeded by a Classic Traveling Situation. We left about an hour and a half early, estimating 45 minutes of train riding from the house to the train station. Murphy's law states "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong," and this day proved that. The second we stepped onto the train I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. Badly. I won't go into further detail than that, but suffice it to say, I was experiencing a high degree of discomfort. But I knew Monica was stressing about her connection, so I refrained from saying anything on the matter, and of course the farther along the train got, the more intense my situation became. In the past 5 weeks that I've lived in Denmark, the train has always been smooth and efficient. Well not this day. When we came within 2 stops of Monica's destination, the train shuddered and stopped. Something was announced in Danish over the loudspeaker, but I couldn't understand it because it wasn't "pølser med ketchup." When I asked the 8 other people in our car what the announcement said, they all shrugged their shoulders and looked confused. Jackasses. In a few minutes the train picked up again, however my situation was only getting worse. And then the train stopped again, in a tunnel. I began pacing up and down the train cars, feigning claustrophobia with heavy breathing. After what seemed like a least 30 hours, the train began crawling again, and eventually pulled into the station before Monica's. I told her I would meet her at the next station, and flew out of there looking for a toilet.

As you can imagine, in such an urgent situation, there was no immediate relief. With no restroom at the station, I left, looking for a restaurant, bar, hotel, anything. I found a hotel and raced downstairs to the bathroom. Women's door was locked. Ran to the men's. Locked. Raced back up the stairs and down the street, not even realizing it had begun to rain. I checked my phone: 25 minutes until Monica's train departs. I found a restaurant. The host approached me and I asked if he had a bathroom, obviously under some stress. He slowly said no, the restaurant did not have a bathroom. I almost yelled in disbelief. He then stated that the hotel next door had a bathroom, and pointed in the correct direction. At last.

After that debacle, I raced down the street to København H, the main train station and as such, the location of Monica's Amsterdam train. Luckily the station I got off at was only about 200 meters from København H, so it was very little leg work to get there. As it happened, after I got off the train it ceased to run entirely, and Michael had to usher Monica to København H on foot. They luckily arrived with 20 minutes to spare for her, but I wanted to say goodbye, and arrived with only 10 minutes before the train's departure. Of course her car was the very last one on the train, so I was running through the rain to meet her. But I was able to make a proper farewell, and she arrived safely in Amsterdam 15 hours later.

I think everyone has a story like this while traveling, where everything just seems to get worse and worse. After Monica got on her train, the whole situation became humorous, although I would rather not experience it again. All's well that end's well, eh?