Day 23 - Frederikshavn-Zoetermeer (actually Apeldoorn)

Today was my journey back home: sadly it didn't go as planned :-(

The day started at 04:15; much too early. I couldn't sleep of the rolling of the ship, squeaking noises and the ship being pounded by the waves over and over again. So I got up, went outside to go for a little block on the deck and saw it sounded worse than it looked. The weather was still stormy, but not as bad as I imagined. After walking on the ship (it was light) I went to bed at 5h to get some more sleep.

My alarm went of at 6:45. The ship arrived at 07:15. The advantage of sleeping under the car deck is that I only had to take one stair up :) My bike was still standing; while others were taking a long time with their bike equipment, I jumped on the bike and got myself ahead of the lorries. In my fast- and sleepiness pace I forgot something: my Norway shirt :-(

At the station I picked up my bicycle train ticket: but something had gone wrong. I had ordered a ticket for the total journey in Denmark, but I got a half way ticket. Luckily I had enough DKKs to buy the extra ticket and the bicycle carriage was not fully booked.

The train ride started of good: the DSB (diesel) trains were equipped with free wifi! So this enabled me to put all my video's online which didn't worked in Oslo. The ride was comfortable and the the scenery was nice :-)

My stops in Aalborg and Frederica were okay. The 35min stop in Frederice even allowed me to cycle through the city. The train from Fredericia to Flensburg was delayed (~15-20min), which was not a problem since I had 45min changing time in Flensburg.

The ride in Germany was less smooth: the Regional Bahn was an older train with hard seats. But it came in time to Hamburg. There (at 17:30) I got myself some dinner (Burger King) and went to the InterCity train which would take me to Münster. Somehow these long distance ICs always have delay. The delay on this train was stupid: we left 15 minutes later than scheduled. As this was a train ride of 2h and 15min I had some hope it would make up (some) time.
I parked my bicycle in the bicycle carriage and found my reserved seat. I saw that red tape kept me from sitting there. The lint had the text "climate control not working, do not sit here" on it. I didn't mind and sat there anyway. When the train left the train conductor said that I had to leave and sit in the next carriage. Some Germans were already complaining that this was b*llsh*t, since the air-conditioning in the next carriage also didn't work. After 10min a grey bearded old DB worker came with a measuring device (meten=weten! :-) to see if the airflow from the vents was below standards. And yes it was... So again we had to move, and even more Germans were angry! ^^

Besides all the problems with the air-conditioning the IC train ride from Hamburg to Münster went well. It was sad however that the train couldn't make up any time... So of course I missed my connection. The original changing time was short (8min), but there was no other way. So I had to wait for one hour!
Once I came to the Netherlands (Enschede), I could finally see what the consequences would be. I was still confident to get to Utrecht and take the night train from there.
As I came in Enschede at 22:20, I got a nasty surprise: rail road works! O_o This meant buses between Hengelo and Almelo. After searching all possible options to get home, I saw that it wasn't possible to get closer to home than Apeldoorn. I called my study buddy who lives there and he said I could stay there :-)

While taking the bus, I met these two guys who had to travel to Groningen. They had to travel 3 hours extra because the door of a German train didn't open. I showed them the way and we travelled together to Almelo by bus. When we came in Almelo I saw the Intercity which goes to Utrecht at the station. But as I was taking out my bike from the bus, it left... Too bad.
In the train from Almelo to Apeldoorn I asked the train conductor if I could get my money back for the new train ticket I had to buy the next morning. She wanted to call a taxi to bring me home, which was fantastic! :-) However... I had a bike was me; this made it impossible because taxi drivers generally don't take bicycles. If I tried harder and put more pressure on the conductor, it might have worked. But I already told I was staying in Apeldoorn and was happy I could sleep somewhere :-)

I arrived in Apeldoorn station after twelve and cycled through the night to get to Jeroen's house, which is in the countryside. There I got a nice welcome and after that I went to bed.