But before I go back to Italy (both literally and metaphorically speaking), I want to give Groningen the rest of the attention it deserves.
On our second night we were taken to the Pannekoekschip, or Pancake Ship for anyone who doesn’t speak the phlegmy Dutch language. It’s a houseboat restaurant on one of the many canals, although unfortunately it’s just on cement blocks and doesn’t actually float on the water. The syrup was more like molasses than Aunt Jemima’s and came in a huge ceramic crock that sat on the table. Danielle and Emily took turns playing with the large wooden spoon, trying to make molasses bubbles.
The placemats were boards for playing Battleship.
The pancakes themselves were crepe-like and bigger than the plates they came on. I got one with sautéed bananas and powdered sugar and bashfully asked for milk, which came in a ceramic mug with “Holland” and a doe-eyed Dutch girl printed on the side. I’m not sure if I’m more embarrassed or proud that I finished.
I felt very…European in the Netherlands. I rode on the back of Kristen’s bike while wearing Dani’s blazer and a scarf, politely declined offers from a junkie to buy a bike for just 5E (bike theft is both very common and very heavily penalized), went to a Polish Mass in a Dutch church (it is REALLY hard to say even the Our Father, a prayer I’ve said everyday since I could form sentences, when everyone else around you is saying it in a different language), an
d then ruined whatever semblance I had of blending in when I stopped to take pictures every few minutes.
After four delightfully relaxing days, Kristen dropped me off at the train station and I settled in for what I imagined would be a typically Dutch train experience, namely quiet, clean, and efficient and I’d get to the Eindhoven airport with plenty of time to read and not understand any conversations going on around me. With about an hour left till we get to Eindhoven, the train just quietly stops. There is an announcement in Dutch that I obviously don’t understand, we sit there for awhile, and then we keep moving. No one around me seems to be distressed, so I innocently imagine that everything is hunky dory. And then we stop at an unscheduled train station.
There is another, longer announcement, and this time I turn to the Dutch men next to me and ask them to translate, with a nervous glance at my watch. Apparently there is something wrong with the cable and the train will go back to the Amsterdam station. Anyone hoping to go to Eindhoven will then need to catch another train with at least one transfer. The whole process will take at least two hours.
My flight leaves in two and a half and it’s a half hour bus ride from the Eindhoven train station to the airport.
I mention this, trying to combine both concern and nonchalance in my voice while hiding the rising panic, to the gentlemen sitting next to me. They look at each other and grimace.
“You will probably have to get out here and get a taxi to the bus station. You won’t make your flight if you go back to Amsterdam.”
With a quick thanks, I grab my bag and jump off the train and start the search for someone in uniform who can tell me exactly what to do and when to do it and really, don’t worry, you’ll make your flight. There is no such person. The train conductors shrug, there is no ticket window, and then I watch the train roll away to Utrecht. It is increasingly clear that I am in the middle of nowhere. I have no cash, no map, no phone, and even if I did I wouldn’t know whom to call. I’m three hours from Groningen, farther from Italy, and I want to go home to Siena so badly I could cry.
With a private reminder to take deep breaths and hey, this’ll make a great story someday, I get directions to the train’s bus station. The Bumblefuck status of the town is even more obvious. A small crowd of people has gathered, but the bus clearly does not go anywhere close to where I need to go and even if it did, I wouldn’t know because oh right, I don’t speak Dutch. I win some sympathy from a kindly couple and a businessman with my I’m-young-and-stranded-and-oh-Lord-I-have-a-flight-to-catch card. The husband’s sister is coming to pick them up, but she won’t be there for another half an hour. The businessman is calling the taxi company, but so are the other fifteen people waiting with us.
A taxi arrives and is immediately swarmed by everyone. It’s not for us, us being myself and the businessman and a few others we’ve picked up. Ten minutes later, the process is repeated. I am caught in the very uncomfortable emotional state somewhere between resigned and hysterical. The sun is beating down. Etc.
Another businessman overhears me mentioning to the umpteenth person also trying to get a cab that I have a flight to catch in two hours and I really need to get to the airport asap and please can someone tell me what’s going on. “Those two are also trying to get to the airport; maybe you can share a cab with them?” he says, pointing in the direction of two people my age.
I go over and introduce myself. Larry from Singapore and Leanne from Malaysia are two medical students who have a flight to catch back to Dublin where they go to school. They’re shouldering the enormous backpacks of traveling twentysomethings and are waiting to hear back from the cab company. My relief at finding people my age who are just as desperate to get to this tiny Netherlands airport is practically tangible. Another girl joins our group, Carla from Amsterdam. We call the cab company again.
No problem, they’ll be here in five minutes. Here’s the license plate number of the cab.
We split up into pairs to watch the ends of the street, having witnessed several mobs now fight over cabs. The pressure somewhat off, Larry tells me about couch-surfing around Northern Europe and I tell him about my class in Siena. We joke, although still somewhat uneasily, about our current situation.
Fifteen minutes go by. No cab. We regroup with Leanne and Carla and call again. There’s definitely a cab for us, it’ll be here in three minutes. Eight minutes go by. We call again. They don’t answer. We call again. Yes yes, there’s a cab, it’ll be here in two minutes and it’s a black Mercedes and here’s the license plate never mind that it’s a different number.
After another seven minutes, Carla and Leanne flag us down. Larry and I race over to their end of the street and the four of us slam into the cab with no competition. Larry turns to the driver, a very tall and very bald and very intimidating man in a grey ribbed sweater, who looks like someone out of the Bourne movies, and says, “Have you seen the movie The Transporter? Drive like that guy.”
The second businessman, the one who pointed me in the direction of my new friends, waves to me as we pull out of the train station parking lot.
We’re in a cab, we’re going fast, we’re going to make it to the airport in plenty of time. Our anxiety is released in laughter. The four of us exchange names and emails, with promises to Facebook friend each other. There’s no need to run once we do get to the airport, but we do anyway because “It makes it more dramatic!” as Larry said.
The rest of the trip home to Siena was quiet. The last leg of the journey was a tiny two-car train, where I sat by the window and watched the sun set over Tuscany. The stations along the way were small and empty, with maybe one or two people getting out and the engineer in his shirt-sleeves stepping out onto the platform at every stop to check tickets and look at the landscape.
It was good to be back.
