Friday - Switzerland/Germany/Netherlands

Friday was travel day, and travel I did, alright... Fritz and Vreni brought me to the trainstation in Belp and made sure I got on the right train. I will miss these two dear people very much! They have such loving and embracing hearts, and they are such a safe place for me and a whole lot of other people... And what I really like about them is that they are obedient to the Lord above all things, and they are adventurous!

So, in Bern Haupt Bahnhof I switched trains to get on the ICE train to Frankfurt... I found my reserved seat and made myself comfortable. Fritz had insisted upon getting me train reservations for the two long stretches, because of the ash still bellowing around in Europe. The airtraffic is getting on its way, but a lot of people will not take the risk of being stranded and so they take the train instead... It was really good advice, because pretty much all the chairs in first class were taken.

In Frankfurt I switched trains again and found my seat in wagon 28 at the very end of the train. This was going to be a three and a half hour train ride (between Bern and Frankfurt was four hours), and as it turned out we arrived 20 minutes late in Utrecht, where I then missed my connection to Zaltbommel where my sister Reinie would pick me up at a quarter of six in the afternoon. The station in Utrecht has always been a beehive of activity since it is the biggest hub in the country. This Friday afternoon it was even more hectic, because earlier in the afternoon there had been a power outage which then puts the entire train schedule out of order. On top of that, there were announcements that two trains had been in collisions with "a person". Now that is never good. People were walking around trying to figure out which train at what track was going where, and the trains were like sardine cans, so full with people. Since I have not been able to get my cell phone to work, I asked a friendly looking lady if she had a mobile phone and if I maybe could call my sister to let her know that I was coming with the next train, 30 minutes later. The lady was very nice and dialed the number for me and everything. So, at 6:20pm I met Reinie at the Zaltbommel trainstation! She took me home where my brother-in-law was and one of my nephews and his wife. We had dinner, went for a walk in the neighborhood and I was in bed a little bit after 10! It is great to be back in the flat land, and being with Martijn and Ellen in Poland helped tremendously with the transition to speak Dutch...

BTW: Geneva won game 6 in the Swiss Ice Hockey championships. The last game will be played on Saturday, but I don't know if I can get you the end results because the Dutch don't care about ice hockey :-)