It was very crowded at ZOB this morning. Strangers starting up conversations mostly with the word ‘strike’ in them. Most of them were happy and jolly. Clearly they’d never caught a long distance bus before. Mind you, I’m pretty amazed that FlixBus has started with time travel as well as normal roads.
Given I’ve spent too long at ZOB Hamburg before, I knew to go to the small café and get a roll and a bottle of water. Then it was just a matter of waiting at the correct bay for the bus to Amsterdam to make an appearance. There was a last minute panic when the indicator changed the time for the bus by an hour but this panic turned quickly to relief when it was realised that the bus had just changed bays and that was the next one.
Of course, because I booked at the last minute, I didn’t have an actual seat number. I just had to sit down and then shuffle around until I found the empty seat.
Like last time, there were the normal five stops where some passengers left the bus and some others joined. Then, at the penultimate stop there was great excitement as it was realised that there was one extra person on board. We had a stowaway.
He got on at one of the previous stops and he had hidden out in the loo for a while. He was told to get out and ended up sitting across the aisle from me. That was fine because there were a few spare seats at that point. However, that all changed at the next stop when the bus filled up again. There shouldn’t be one person standing on the coach.
The two drivers (one of them a tiny yet very feisty, Italian woman and the other resembling a Bulgarian wrestler) went through the bus looking at everyone’s tickets until they found him. He was thrown off the bus in no uncertain terms. And in the middle of nowhere. Apparently he didn’t have a passport either. Anyway, we headed off for Amsterdam and left him to his own devices.
We drove by many fields full of tulips though, as I explained to Mirinda, I couldn’t really take a photo because, firstly I was in the aisle seat and, secondly because the Netherlands is quite flat and not exactly conducive to good photographs of fields full of tulips. Still, eventually we arrived at Amsterdam Sloterdijk and I went and bought a ticket for Centraal.
Of course, being a seasoned traveller, I had no problem buying a ticket. As opposed to the young chap at the machine next to me. He asked me if I would buy him a ticket. At first I thought it was some sort of scam so was very wary but he convinced me that it was just because his card wouldn’t work. I gave him a ticket and, when he tried to pay, I pushed his cash away and said it was my gift to him. It was guilt at thinking he was a possible scammer.
And so on to Amsterdam Centraal then the unexpectedly, very long walk to my hotel which seems to have a 24 hour party on the ground floor that is so loud, it’s almost impossible to hear the woman at the reception. Still, I managed to get my room and headed upstairs for a very short rest because I had a text from Anthea saying they’d arrived at their hotel. So, with scant relief for my feet, I headed back out.
It was a very wet Gazweasel who greeted the others at the Canvas Bar atop their hotel. While the days travelling had been beautiful, bright and sunny, my walk had been blighted with torrential train. A few times during my mammoth walk I figured I’d just stop in a bar and wait for the rain to abate. Sadly, everyone else in Amsterdam had the same idea. I just kept walking.
Eventually I arrived, hugged, drank beer and chatted. Lovely beer, lovely chat, lovely Weasels. We sat for a number of hours, deciding we may as well eat where we were. I introduced them to the joys of bitterballen and John and I had herring.
Eventually I left to return to my hotel though, this time, I caught the Metro then a tram. It was much nicer.
I was asleep very quickly when I was back in my room.
