Part of a weekly look into the adventures of Lisa Chin
Traveling in other countries is an extraordinary experience, especially if you’ve only known one thing your whole life. Suddenly, you are ripped from the comforts of your own language, food, friends and any familiarity, and you’re tossed into the center of a strange new world. The humans you see around you are recognizable, but alien at the same time. Sometimes not knowing the language or customs can have interesting consequences.
For myself, one day turned out to be pure comedy as I ended up on a bloody train to nowhere.
And I mean that literally, not in a London slang phrase sort of way.
I had gone to Amsterdam with a few friends from a smaller town called Enschede. They had all headed back, but I decided to stay an extra day so I could visit a museum in Amsterdam with a friend from London.
At the end of a lovely day of picture taking and sightseeing, I had to bid her farewell and make my way back to Enschede… alone.
First challenge, getting the ticket…
In my pocket lay a crumpled piece of paper that my friend had written her address and phone number on. Both pieces of information looked like some bizarre code, indecipherable to my ignorant American nine-digit phone and five-digit zip code eyes. I went up to the ticket agent and pushed it towards her hoping she would be able to tell me what to do next and how much colorful Dutch play money to fork over.
She gave me that look signifying “ah I can help you but first, let me tell you a lengthy set of instructions that you won’t understand as I point vaguely in the general direction you should walk next.”
As I nodded not understanding a single iota of what I had to do next, I looked down at the ticket.
It seemed simple enough – Go to platform 8B and the train will leave at the time stated.
I looked down a long hallway punctuated by upward stairwells and read the signs. One said something regarding trains 8A-B. I thought, Sweet! This is going to be a piece of cake!
I gingerly sprinted up the steps triumphantly thinking I had mastered my first real challenge of traveling in another country, the local transit system. Now I had to call my friend and tell her I was on my way.
I made sure I was on the right platform and saw I was standing at 8A. A little further down it said 8AB. Great, I’ll just walk to the end when the train comes.
So it looked like a normal phone…
The public phones looked similar to what I was used to seeing. A phone, keypad, coin slot and digital display. On the display it was clearly labelled that I had to deposit two coins to make a phone call. So simple.
I took my paper out and looked at the number. It was an unusual amount of digits and I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to use the 1 in the beginning, or if you had to use a zero with an international code, if some of those numbers written were international codes and if so, maybe I should leave them out because I was making the call from within the country. This alone posed several combinations of digits that could or couldn’t work. Whatever, I can just try them all.
I dropped two coins into the phone. Some instruction came up on the digital display written in Dutch.
I put the number in, another message came up.
Then it didn’t go through but I saw some message that I had to wait two minutes for the system to reset itself. I moved over to the next phone and tried again. None of them worked and I kept running out of phones that were working.
Then I tried putting the number in first and then coins.
Then I tried putting the number in, paused a second and then put the coins in… each time getting shut down in another language. I began to call over anybody walking by to see if they could help me but every time somebody did walk over, they would start speaking in German or French and had no idea. Most of them tried in vain while scratching their heads and would fail. I realized a lot of people visit Amsterdam but apparently actual Dutch people were found elsewhere. At some point I saw the time was getting close and gave up.
My friends had told me they were picking me up regardless at a certain time so if everything went smoothly, I shouldn’t really have to call them. It was more of a courtesy.
What happened to Platform 8B?
Then I looked up as a train pulled past the 8A platform that I was standing on. That train was probably the one I wanted. I walked further down past Platform 8AB. There was no platform 8B. The train stopped at the 8AB sign. Was 8AB the same as 8B? Why would there be a 8A and then 8AB? Confused with five minutes to departure, I ran back down the stairs to the long hallway with all of the platform names and couldn’t find a single one that said anything closer to my answer than 8AB. I figured, okay maybe 8B is at the end of 8AB but it’s obvious so they didn’t need signage? 8AB then. I went back up just in time to run onto the train and grab a seat. After ten minutes the ticketing agent came by to punch the ticket, he looked down, punched a hole and moved on. He would have noticed if the ticket was wrong, right? I wanted to avoid more bad Dutch conversations that gave me little answer so I didn’t ask. I stared out of the window in doubtful hope that I was going in the right direction.
Holland is a beautiful country with an endless rolling landscape of farms, cows, horses and other various grazing animals. At first it was very relaxing, but after a while, I had begun to worry that the stops were too far in between. I didn’t remember the trip to Amsterdam being the same way. I remembered there were stops every ten minutes.
Fifteen minutes went by, twenty, twenty five, twenty-seven… Time seemed to go slower in relation to my inner state of hysteria. Once the train went past forty minutes without stopping, I panicked enough to get up and find an agent.
At the far end of the car stood three agents chatting and laughing. They saw me approaching and paused. I tried my best to make my face convey confusion and handed my ticket over, shrugging my shoulders.
The woman closest to me grabbed my ticket, looked down and the proceeded to show her colleagues, all the while laughing with fleeting eye glances in my direction. She tried valiantly to say something to me but her English was very limited. She tried using hand gestures as best she could punctuated by simple words.
Are you sure you didn’t sell me this ticket? I could have sworn I just did this. Then the train began to slow down as we pulled into a stop…finally!
Using more emphatic hand gestures and words like “oonder,” she successfully told me to go down a staircase, walk beneath the platforms and go back the other way back to Amsterdam. I had shifting feelings of relief and distress, because I was on my way, but officially in the middle of nowhere and late. I made the universal hand signs for down stairs and under one last time as they gleefully nodded and I bid them a grateful adieu.
Is there a way to tell if guys are hitting on you in another language? Nope.
I made a straight path for the one staircase she had pointed out. At least there were no other options available than to go in that one direction. Coming out of the staircase, I came upon three construction workers who were leaning on the wall and socializing. They looked up and saw me. One guy smiled and said something in Dutch. I gesticulated that I didn’t understand but he said something else that sounded more direct. Then another guy started laughing and said something to the first guy. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I smiled politely and started walking down the platform thinking they were trying to flirt or something. They continued to laugh and say things after me, to which I smiled and just walked farther down the platform.
Pretty soon afterwards, the train arrived and boy was I glad. Besides the three workers, the platform and surrounding area were pretty deserted, and I didn’t have any interest of hanging around for much further. I grabbed a seat by the window and waited for the train to pull out.
As it did, I ended up passing the construction workers again. This time they were all standing relaxed, leaning against the wall smirking, doing the miss America hand wave good bye. It was the universal sign for…well we tried to warn you but you didn’t listen…so have fun!
I sat there thinking, why do these things always happen when I’m by myself? This is probably going to be one of those tall tales I tell where it sounds like I’m exaggerating. Is this going to get stranger? Maybe the train will just go straight back to Amsterdam, somehow the stupid phones will actually work, I’ll catch the correct train and be in Enschede by night fall. Just going to relax because there are lovely rolling hills and cows outside of my window and it is so quiet. It’s really quiet. Really realllly quiet.
Hmm, let me stretch my neck and see if I’m the only person on this car. Yep, well that’s not totally surprising right? The stop that I got on this train was completely deserted and logically thinking, because the stops are forty minutes apart, it was probably coming from somewhere unpopulated.
Let me check my watch. Only ten minutes. Cool, I only have thirty more minutes until I’m back in Amsterdam.
Great. I am sooooo relaxed.
If this is the twilight zone, shouldn’t everything be in black and white?
And then, after ten minutes, the train began to slow down by a platform. Hmmm, is this normal? Shouldn’t it be forty minutes until it stops? I remember passing platforms and not stopping so perhaps this was the local train back? I got mad that I was going to be even later…until the train did something weird, it didn’t stop at the platform. It went slowly past it, glided slowly for a very long time, and then it stopped…NOT at the platform. Actually quite a bit ahead of it.
Now I’m thinking. Okay that’s weird. No doors opening. I’ll just sit here another minute? Then the train began rolling very slowly backwards. Why would a train go backwards? Then it stopped again. I heard a thud and the train rolled even more and just slowed to a soft stop. Then it was really quiet.
I got up, didn’t see anything or anyone out of the window. I decided to see if I could find a ticket agent. I went to the car behind and noticed immediately that it was also empty. Now my pace was quickening as I ran to check the next one, of course discovering that it too was vacant.
I quickly realized the entire train was deserted and what small amount of staff present were probably leaving. I only had a minute or so to make the first car where hopefully I could reach a driver or something.
I quickly turned the other way and began to run, getting more and more tense with each empty car I passed, the only sound I could hear were my footsteps breaking the muffled silence.
I reached the farthest car and knocked really hard on the door.
“HEELLLLOOOO. Helllllooooo. HEYYYY!!!”
No response. Shit. I turned to the right where the front exit door was and pushed all of the large round buttons next to it that I could find. Nothing. It was like hitting the buttons on an arcade machine that isn’t plugged in, you get a satisfying click and then nothing. I tried pushing the doors. They weren’t budging at all. I checked the windows and thought to myself, there’s no way I can kick through these things. They look pretty solid. No way to open them either. Great. How long could I possibly be stuck here.
I went back to the driver door, saw the emergency break lever and hoping some alarm would go off, I pulled it. I didn’t hear an alarm, but rather a diminishing slow hiss from air being let out of some brake or something. Then silence again.
This silence after the dramatic hiss made me bust out in laughter. I put my head on my forearm against the door and looked left, where something caught my eye.
How did I NOT see that. The first few windows of the left side of the car were covered in blood splatter. Dozens of short streaks that had turned downwards when the train came to a stop I suppose.
Ohhhh….now I get it!
Now I was really laughing. I couldn’t believe my trip turned this dramatically. Now it all made sense – the train had hit something, hopefully a cow, and the construction workers were trying to tell me this train was headed for the yard to be cleaned. Very funny indeed.
I took out my camera and figured, well what else am I going to do. May as well snap some shots so people believe me.
As I took pictures, I looked right again and caught the sight of a female train worker walking about four tracks away. Holy crap! My salvation!
I ran to the door and started pounding it with my fists, screaming towards her. At the same time, I was thinking that if this was a television comedy, they would show a scene of me inside of the car hysterically screaming. Then they would switch the shot to this lady walking straight and not noticing me because I wasn’t making any sounds that could be heard from the outside. After ten seconds I was already thinking, “Of course she can’t hear me because… this would be my luck.”
She must have noticed something because she looked at me for a split second and then continued walking straight again. No! She then did one of those classic double-takes and bewildered, started running towards me speaking inaudibly jiggling keys between her fingers.
“What are you doing here?!!” She said as she opened the door.
The relief that came over me when she spoke those English words was immeasurable.
FINALLY! This woman can unlock all the secrets of the universe!
I told her a short version of how I ended up on the train much to her chagrin. She asked if I wanted to use her cellphone to call my friends. Another wave of relief washed over me. Thank you stranger for not leaving me to the mercy of the public pay phones again. I asked her what I did wrong and she told me that I had to put the number in, then wait two seconds for a tone, then drop the coins. Apparently not waiting the two seconds makes the phones unable to comprehend. I NEVER would have guessed to do that in a million years.
I’m from New York. Waiting two seconds seems like a cardinal sin.
After that, I took the correct trains back to Enschede with quite the lovely tale to tell.
Who knew one could get so incredibly lost but in retrospect, it was a lot of fun and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
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Lisa Chin is a Senior Interactive Director at SNAP Interactive and the newest columnist for Wika Magazine. You can check out Lisa’s online portfolio here.
