Traveling in style

Thanks for sending in your stories! From our colleague Isabel Campos Plasencia:

Hi Danielle,

Myself, together with other three colleagues from Spain, rented a car, a luxury Mercedes (see attached pictures) and drove 3200 Km to Spain. So, if there is a prize about "coming back home in style" should be for us :)

We started friday at noon from Stockholm airport, arrived to Hamburg in the late evening, and continue till Santander, in the North coast of Spain, arriving saturday nigh, very late, actually it was sunday already at 2:30am, home. All at all we made it 36,5 hours, not bad :)

The car we rented in the airport, and they charged us 1000 euros extra for giving it back in another country.
Initially we had considered to give it back in Hamburg, and taking the train from there...
BUT, when we got to the car (see pictures) and saw that actually the car had plates from Hamburg....
We thought this people is abusing us, they were charging us 1000 euros for taking the car back home!!!
Therefore we decided to enforce justice.

So, we drove the car, all the way to Spain, hoping that the police did not check the car papers, (where it said it can only cross Denmark and Germany) and drop it in the airport in Santander, at the parking slots of the company at 2:30am.

We still have not heard any complain from them, nor any extra charge of any type. Which I find remarkable because we did not even fill the tank, as we were supossed to. However, we were supossed to give back the car in Hamburg on sunday at noon, instead, we gave back the car before the maximum time! only 2000 Km. from Hamburg.


I attach here some nice pictures of the car navigator when crossing Malmoe bridge, a wonderful sunset over this bridge on friday, and two more of the nicest car any of us ever drove :) All this thanks to volcano.

cheers,
Isabel

An eco friendly journey

And I thought my journey was long! from some of our Russian colleagues: 

From Vladimir Voznesensky

Hello, dear Danielle.

Here is our story.

Two months before UF5 Igor Semenov and I have decided to get ... train and ferry tickets from Moscow via Riga to Stockholm and back. We had a pleasant eco-friendly journey, and even the number of co-travelers was not high: there was only about 1000 people (of maximum 2500) in our ferry to Riga on Friday, and the train car to Moscow was only 2/3 full.

So, have you even considered Riga-Vilnius-Warsaw instead of Copenhagen-Hamburg?

Cheers,
VV

Saving drowner is the drowner's job

So says a common Russian wisdom, and it also was the essence of the message given by the kind lady at the SAS desk in the Stockholm airport. Well, I *knew* it, and this is how by the time I got to chat with her I had a bus ticket safely stored in my SMS archive. So in order to justify 2+ hours of queuing, I chatted with her about inflexibilities of business models of transport companies: she suggested they can make big money if they adjust their schedules to those of volcanoes. Good idea.

And drowner I was: I really had to get out of Uppsala on Thursday, because I happened to schedule an exam some 600+ km away in Lund on Friday at 9 AM, and needless to say, it was a tad too late to find a replacement. On top of that, I had a flight to Geneva on Sunday, to take some shifts. In other words, I really had to make two trips by Monday morning.

So my odyssey started by rushing to the airport hoping to jump on the first flight south, only to miss it by few minutes. It was the last one, actually. Don't think they had free places anyway. This was when I got the ticket to the infinitely long SAS help desk queue, and bumped into a colleague who just got his northwards flight canceled. Another Russian wisdom says "one head is good, two are better". Indeed. Anticipating a long wait in the queue, we comfortably sat on the floor and fetched our trusty notebooks. I tried to get through the ever-crashing Swedish railways site, and Mattias found the famous ash maps from the UK met office. We just looked, shook our collective head and concluded "it ain't going to be better".

The rest is history. He managed to get a train through his agent using my phone because his ran out of power (northwards direction nobody needed somehow), and I abandoned futile attempts on the Web and rushed upstairs to the physical railways ticket office. Oh, these folks were super-efficient, Scandinavian way! They only had one cashier, but there was a helpful girl walking up and down the queue and asking "where are you heading?" To almost any reply her comment was simple: "no tickets". So the queue was moving really fast. I didn't give up even when the guy at the cashier told me the same - no tickets for the next couple of days. I happened to notice in between the Web site crashes that there is another company running trains, and asked the guy about it. Surely enough, he couldn't sell their tickets, but he knew their phone. Better than nothing. So I went back to my SAS queue and called that other company. No miracles, they sold everything out. But they knew there is a bus company that may help. Oh, there's another Russian wisdom: "the tongue will lead to Kiev". You know what I mean. I wasn't going that far, but getting to Lund required some extensive communication too. So, the bus folks never picked the phone, but their Web site was working, so yessss, I got the ticket!!! Cost more than I paid for the plane, actually. But the plane was definitely canceled by this time (they really waited long before admitting it).

And since I got some time before the bus departure, I decided to wait and see what SAS has to say. That's where I started this post. Meanwhile I met some other stranded folks from the EGEE Forum who I'm sure will post way more exciting stories. But mine is not over.

The night bus Stockholm-Lund is a pain. I shared this pain with 320 fellow travelers, for whom the company exceptionally arranged 8 buses - the driver kept repeating that normally they run one (1), and even that is half-empty. Maybe the SAS lady was right. Anyway, the bus went past Lund all the way to Malmo, heading towards Copenhagen, and the driver suggested me to take another bus back. No way, that was enough and I wanted to brush my hair before appearing at the exam, so I took a taxi. The first thing the cab driver said was "nothing works today" - which made me thinking of taking another cab, but he actually referred to the canceled flights and the volcano. That made me suspicious, but it was too late (like, 7 AM) and I was too desperate. A 30 Euro drive cost 100 that day. But hey, I made the first journey, in time! Phileas Fogg would have cried of envy.

So there I was on Friday, thinking what are my chances of flying to Geneva on Sunday. Zip. Of course the airport was only closed until Saturday, and of course nothing was canceled, but the air smelled like sulfur and the clouds looked odd. So I figured I have to go by train. Travel agencies were useless, and there was no way to buy a ticket Lund - Geneva on the Web, whatever is the reason. That is, one can buy tickets Lund-Copenhagen, Copenhagen-Hamburg, Hamburg-Basel and Basel-Geneva, all separate, from different sites. Which I did. Does this qualify me as a travel agent, I wonder? Whatever. Copenhagen railway station featured the longest queue to the ticket office I ever saw on train stations. Train Copenhagen-Hamburg looked much like those in India, with people all but hanging outside. And it was late by 20 minutes in Hamburg! Right, my connection to the Basel train was 7 minutes, tough luck.

But hey, I was prepared: thanks to the SBB Web site (HIGHLY recommended!) I knew I can catch the Basel train in Goettingen if I take a later but faster Munich train. So I was running like crazy up and down the platforms trying to figure where is that Munich train. Every official was pointing into new direction. And then something occurred to me: *every* train was delayed by 30-40-70 minutes. Really striking observation, given the circumstances. Calmed down, I came to one very serious lady who looked less stressed than other officials and told her that I missed my train to Basel and wonder ... "NO" she said in a very firm and loud voice. I didn't get the point and tried to repeat the question, but she repeated in a tone of a police officer "NO" and asked, in the same tone, "when is your train?". I actually didn't remember at that point, so she answered: "19:24, you did not miss it, it didn't even arrive yet". Cool. No, I mean it, cool. It departed 2 hours late, by the way, but being a night train, caught up with the schedule.

Yeah, half the train jumped off at Basel Bad, but the station looked suspiciously small to me, so I decided to ask a local smoking a pipe near the car (remember about Kiev?), - he said that this is not Basel SBB. Good. Because my connection to the Geneva train was 8 minutes, and the train was 5 minutes late. It is incredibly difficult to make a dash to the opposite end of a large railway station with luggage at 7 AM after a stressful day and sleepless night. And when your mobile phone cries for a recharge. So I had to catch the train, they have power outlets there. I managed, still can't believe it.

And I tell you what: I actually bought a train ticket back for April 27, just in case. Good that one can return train tickets any time!

Escape To Victory

Some more tales from the EGEE/Gridtalk team about the journey back home.

The last day of any conference is usually pretty laid back, this one was a little different as it was the last "hurrah" for EGEE so the mood was bitter sweet with a few "final" farewells said. However as news came filtering in about the volcano and the subsequent delays, the mood was relatively jovial. A lot of people weren't flying till Friday so there was some gentle ribbing of the people "stranded" with expectations they'd be off on the first flight Friday, how wrong we were.

In total 5 of us headed down to Stockholm that evening, 3 knew they'd have been in Stockholm that night, 2 didn't. The mood was optimistic and it was assumed this would all blow over (hopefully literally) in a day or two. By Saturday lunchtime it became obvious this was not the case, so Gillian, Manisha and I spent 4 long hours in front of laptops. We eventually beat the internet, the train schedules and hotels into submission. We had decided we were not leaving Stockholm till we had a clear path to London and we had succeeded.

On paper the journey looked both simple and convoluted. How many trains were we going to be using? How many countries would we see (albeit one fleetingly out of the train windows)? In the end the lovely people at SJ (Swedish Railways), Deutsche Bahn and Eurostar would take us from Stockholm to The Capital in a mere 38 hours. Messers Ibis and Nebo would provide the beds (there had to be beds, I'm getting too old for sleeping in train stations). We would wind through northern Europe: Stockholm -> Malmo* -> Copenhagen** -> Hamburg* -> Hanover* -> Cologne* -> Brussels** -> London. The only problem with the plan was it wasn't going to start till Monday evening so we were "stuck" in the beautiful city of Stockholm with good food and great company. I even got to celebrate International Record Store day by seeing a friend (Gareth Smith of Victims and ex-Raging Speedhorn) do a low key DJ set at the Noise Pollution music shop. The weekend wasn't exactly the definition of one of Dante's circles of hell.

When Monday rolled around we had one last wander around Stockholm and jumped on our train just before 6pm and we had stocked up on snacks and beer for the journey to Copenhagen. I would love to say the platform was rammed and the train some kind of living hell but I have gotten rush hour trains to the 'burbs in London. Actually the train was pretty quiet, plenty of room and there was a spirit of camaraderie among the passengers (despite some having already made the trek to Stockholm from Moscow). When we got to Malmo we had to swap trains (something about safety on the Oresund bridge) but it was also the first of our impromptu meetings. Gillian's friend lives in Malmo and came to meet her on the platform for the ten minutes we waited for our new (smaller and less nice) train to take us to our first hotel and the Danish capital, Copenhagen (or Koebenhavn according to our train tickets).

This was the site of our next meeting John Kewley from NGS met us off the train as he had seen our itinerary on Facebook, was in the city (trying to get home himself) and knew where our hotel was (beside his). Once checked in we exchanged some stories of our travels (and other's plans) over beer (me), hotdogs (me again), baguettes and noodles. We bid John farewell that night, he was taking a different route to the UK, and headed to bed. During our research for our return it became obvious that Copenhagen was the gateway out of Sweden to the rest of Europe so it shouldn't have surprised us that while waiting for our train the next morning we bumped in to Ruediger from EGEE who was getting the same train as us.

Now this train was an experience, overbooked and rammed with massive suitcases (guilty), it took us an hour just to find our seats and get the interlopers in them evicted (chancers). However we got settled in and ready for the next few hours when there was an announcement in German, thankfully repeated in English. "The train will now board the ferry and once on all passengers will need to leave the train and return only when we have docked on the other side". A fair point no hanging out in the ferry hold during the crossing only one problem, what bloody ferry? OK it may seem obvious to get from Denmark to Germany you possibly need to cross some body of water and with hindsight (and Google maps) it's even more so. However we (and Ruediger when we met him on the ferry) were blissfully unaware of this. The process was painless in the end; the train rolled on to the ferry (new one on me), we wandered round the boat for 30/45mins and back on the train.

It got a tiny bit bizarre at this point though. Deutsche Bahn had organised extra carriages for the extra passengers, the one problem? You couldn't get at them by walking through the train. Cue a mass of people rushing past our window with bags, suitcases, children and a kitchen sink (I may have made that last one up). Once that was sorted we started our move to Hamburg 15 minutes late but we weren't bothered we had a long transfer time in Hamburg. This is the point where the announcement (again in German but thankfully repeated in English) over the PA says "The train is being held here as the police investigate an animal on the tracks which was hit by the train before us". Really? You couldn't make this stuff up. In the end it only held us up for 15 minutes but we were getting a touch anxious (we were carting a good few bags around).

Thankfully not only was the platform change simple at Hamburg but the train was amazing. We had been forced to get 1st class tickets for the rest of the day and this was our first taste. The train was extremely quiet so actually had our choice of seats but Gillian and I opted for the dining car where we had dinner at a real table, with real cutlery and real glasses (full of beer for me). We didn't even end up using our seats and the trip to Hanover was over way too soon. However this was our tight swap over, we had 8 minutes to get to our next train and we busted a gut through the busy Hanover train station only to realise we'd swapped platform in 2 minutes so had room to breath and time to watch the display countdown our train's arrival. This is where the journey started getting hectic, thankfully we had seat reservations (which are taken very seriously in Germany) all the way but baggage space was at a premium and our bags spent a lot of time in very different places to us. The rest of the journey was suitably uneventful, we made it to Cologne with time to spare, forced our way on to a cattle train there (so it seemed) which took us to Brussels and our final destination that day.

The dazed look on our faces in Brussels Midi said it all really. We were wiped and we could not have survived another leg that day. We had got on at Copenhagen at 9:45 and got into Brussels at 21:30, 12 hours was as much as we could take and we crashed into the Ibis across the road, stuffed some food into us and hit the hay. Tomorrow our Eurostar was at 7am ....

Despite the god awful start time Wednesday saw the three of us uber-chipper as we were one step away from The Capital and a lot closer to our beds than we had been 24 hours earlier. There were no surprises for us, the queue for the check-in, security and passport control were massive, but the train wasn't packed and we had a restful journey under the channel and through the chunnel. However when we got into London there was one more meeting with an EGEE refugee, Robin McConnell had also seen our itinerary on Facebook and came to meet us as he waited for his train to Edinburgh. He was travelling light for his last leg, his suitcase had been pinched from his coach in Victoria station. A kind of unique "Welcome to England" for him.

Well that was our story, I don't want to do any more travelling any time soon (like that's my choice) but I think we ended up doing very well and had no real mishaps. It also gave me a taste of travelling in Europe by train I may do it again this summer but I'll not to squash it all into 2 days. There are some more images from our time in Stockholm and the journey here.

Later days,
Neasan

* = Change trains, ** = Overnight in hotel

Planes, trains and automobiles – how did you get home from Sweden?

For many of us the EGEE 5th User Forum in Uppsala will live long in the memory. The excellent food, stunning conference venue, Linneaus’s dry wit and the faultless organisation made it a particularly bright star in what has been a glowing galaxy of EGEE events over the years. For some of us though, there will be other reasons why Uppsala will take a while to fade – all thanks to a certain volcano in Iceland. As the ash clouds rolled over Europe and airspace progressively clamped shut, many of us were faced with some tough decisions – sit it out and wait, or try to get home by other means, fair or (often!) foul.

The corridors back at EGEE HQ have been buzzing with our own stories of travel epics as weary colleagues have gradually trailed back into the office – we’ve also heard some tales from others of you on the road and we’d like to hear more. How did you get home? Are you still en route? Who had the longest trip back or were you one of the lucky few who jetted out just as the ash blasted in?

For five of us from the Project Office, Sunday morning in Stockholm dawned clear, still without a plane in the sky, so we decided to launch ourselves into the uncertainties of the public transport system. After struggling with ticket offices and online booking systems stretched to breaking point, we emerged slightly tussled but clutching bus and train tickets as far as Geneva. After what felt like a last supper in the Viking hotel, and fortified by a glass or two of the aptly named ‘Railroad Red’, we all piled on to overnight coaches at Stockholm station, wincing slightly as the doors squealed shut on us for the next 8 hours. Dawn saw us crossing the Oresund bridge towards Copenhagen, glad that the end of the first leg was in sight after a back-breaking journey, peppered with 3am conversations about guinea pigs and unsuspected pregnancies with slightly eccentric co-passengers.

Copenhagen station was awash with anxious travellers – coffee was available but of dubious quality, and trying to avoid being charged to hastily brush your teeth when you had nothing but Swedish krona in your pocket was an added hazard. We crammed onto the platform with other ex-User Forum refugees to fight our way onto the train –sadly the first class tickets that had been the last ones available were not enough to get us a seat, or at least not more than one between the five of us. To say that the train was ‘standing room only’ would have been over generous – there was barely room even for that. After four and half hours, with a very welcome break during the ferry crossing to stretch our legs and remind our lungs what fresh air felt like, the train eased into Hamburg station. The next challenge after many hours of inactivity – to cross several platforms at a dead run, complete with baggage, to where the next train down to Basel was impatiently waiting for us. Train caught, we relaxed into the luxury of actual seats to ourselves and watched the sunny German countryside slide past for the next six or more hours.

With a sense of reaching the home straight, at nearly 9pm, the train approached Basel. Or so we thought. In fact Basel has two stations, only one of which allows a connection to Bern. We got off at the wrong one. With six minutes to spare, we leapt into taxis to try and make the connection (avoiding the temptation to yell ‘Follow that car!” in best filmic tradition). Another luggage-laden dash down the platform followed, just in time to watch the 21.03 slide out of the station with only two out of our party of five on board. Disappointed! Another tedious wait for a train to Bern, a thankfully easy transfer to the Geneva train and we were finally rattling our way to Cornavin, at well past midnight and 26 or more hours into our journey. Trailing back to our cars, we said goodbye to our travelling companions of the last day and a half and agreed that it might be a while before we ventured back to Uppsala again!

As we travelled, we had heartfelt sympathy with everyone else on the road, trying to get back to the UK, Thailand, South Africa, the US, Israel and other far flung places. We'd love to hear more about your own tales of travel and derring do on the road from Sweden - small prize available for the best travelogue or most complicated route!