APRIL 22, MONDAY

LOST

There are a number of ways to get by train from Celle to Westerland on the island of Sylt where Elke’s family owns an apartment that I am staying in for three days. But some routes required changing trains several times. So Heinrich and Elked recommended that I take the 11:20 a.m. train which would require only one change in Hamburg. No need for a reserved seat, there would be few people going to Westerland. Elke drove me in to Celle to make my trip even easier. The train left Celle right on time. It was a fast train and had a restaurant car, but I assumed all trains did and was going to sit in the restaurant car for a good length of time during the 3 hour train trip from Hamburg to Westerland, which I discovered when I looked at the map was as far north as you can go in Germany, right on the Danish border. But on closer inspection the second train was a local and had no restaurant car. So in Hamburg I stuffed down a curry wurst and then a bratwurst with a brotchen and a bottle of coke so that I wouldn’t be hungry on the train, and lucky I did because I wouldn’t be able to eat again for seven hours.

The Westerland train was listed on the platform but apparently late and then I noticed the people who had been waiting along side me were heading for the escalator away from the platform. I asked a train person. No trains to Westerland today, she said, all cancelled. I would have to go up the escalator and out of the station and across the street and there there would be buses to Westerland. It wasn’t clear where the bus would be, but I followed people with their rolling bags out of the station where there was a large group, one of whom answered my poor German with, yes they were going to Westerland or close by. We waited in a herd, all of us from various parts of Germany going on vacation to Westerland, I slowly learned in the next hours, all confused. After maybe twenty minutes the herd began to move. The bus was coming to another place several hundred yards down the street. All of this was second hand, someone had heard the information and passed it along. We got to the second place, a bus was there, it was full. Another bus would be there in 15 minutes. Everyone waited patiently, no one seemed to complain even though many were older. The wind was blowing and it was cold, in the forties for the rest of the trip. We were all depending on the system working although as an outsider I couldn’t help giggling. The whole thing seemed hilarious. One moment the trains were all on time with German precision the next moment we were floating free, still with great faith in the system.

A man showed up and explained that no more buses would be running to Sylt, we had to go back into the station to track 6 and then take trains in a circuitous route, changing several times. At least this is how I understood it when it was passed along to me. The train would leave in 45 minutes. The herd began to break up into little groups, each discussing what to do. I just followed the people who seemed to be most sure of themselves. Once back in the station I looked on the high train listing board for signs of a train to Westerland, Sylt. It never appeared but as I was looking at the board the people I was following had disappeared. I went to track 6. Here was some of our group. I followed them on boarded the train and sat for awhile and then was told that I was in the right train but the wrong car, the train was going to split in half at some point with half going to Husum, where we were to change trains, and half somewhere else. So I walked quickly toward the front of the train, having lost my little group again, and then got on a car, afraid that the train was about to leave. I found a seat next to a woman and waited, not sure where I was going. But it turned out this woman was part of a larger group of five women, all of them tired out after being on various trains all day and all going to Westerland. For the rest of the trip they adopted me and indicated that I should follow them. So the train took off. I located Husum on Google maps. We weren’t going toward it all. The woman assured me that we would change trains in Lubeck, which was a large city that wasn’t even on the map. But after awhile I learned that we were going to change trains in Jubek, which was on the map but meant that we were going on two sides of a triangle, way out of our way, to get to Husum.

We got off at Jubek and found ourselves in a crowd of about 100 school kids in green hats, about 12 years old, who were jostling each other and baiting each other in shrill voices. They are on a school outing, each with a rolling carry on bag which they rode on as they played bumper cars with each other even as their women chaperones tried to keep them from getting to close to the track. When an express train hurtled by almost knocking them flat with its wind they calmed for a moment and then burst into action again. It occurred to me that this is what the school trips that Kathe had told me about with such fondness must of looked like, chaos, with Elke and Kathe, best friends, joining in. I was visiting Sylt to see what had so attracted her and was finding out.

Our train came. It was jammed with people who had missed their trains and the school children who filled the aisles. On the entire trip I never saw a ticket checker, which would have been impossible at this point because the train aisle was filled with kids and their carryon bags. It was impossible to even get to the toilet, which I was beginning to need to do. We got to Husum. The train was scheduled to leave in twenty minutes but soon there was a message on the board saying it would be ten minutes late, then twenty minutes. While we were waiting I and one women in my rescue group took shelter in an enclosed waiting area where two little girls, about three, fascinated with each other kept trying to escape with their parents running to stop them until one managed to catch her hand in the metal door closing and began to howl. Luckily, the pain began to subside and she was reduced to sniffling when our train arrived. Finally our train came, a local, so overfilled that it took forever to get all of us on with the aisles filled again with children, another group had been added, with their carry on bags. It was very difficult for people to get off when their stop came.

Finally we were in the Westerland Hauptbahnhof. I said goodbye to the woman who had guided me and headed for a toilet. We were four hours late. The train had been my adventure for the day.

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It was easy to find the apartment which Elke’s family owned and rented out, free for me for three nights. I photographed the place before I messed it up with my stuff and plugged in my charger and began charging my devices. And then, hungry again in spite of the wursts hours earlier, I went out at 9 p.m. to find a restaurant. Westerland appeared to be dead, I found two restaurants, both closing for the night and finally found a Turkish shop with a single man running things and a single table and had a marvelous roast lamb on pita bread meal with all of the sauces and other vegetable condiments—lettuce, onions, tomatoes. It was delicious. I headed back to my apartment, cold and tired and very full and went to sleep.