Christmas 2002: December 19

We started our trip early Thursday morning, and got off to a not-so-good start by missing our bus to the train station. Fortunately there was another one in 10 minutes (which is why we planned to catch the earlier bus in the first place). Our train left Linköping at 6:43 AM on its way to Malmö (at the very southern end of Sweden). In Malmö we changed trains for a quick ride over to Copenhagen (spelled Köbenhavn in Swedish, or København in Danish), Denmark.

We had bought the train tickets from Linköping to Copenhagen in advance. We hadn't bought any of the tickets for Germany, because it appeared that we would be able to get them for less if we waited until we got there. So we stayed in Copenhagen for an hour or so to buy the ticket to Frankfurt and have lunch. We found a sub place which Sara really liked -- from that point on she decided we would have to stop in Copenhagen for lunch on the way home too.

The next train went from Copenhagen to Hamburg -- this was one of the most comfortable trains on the entire trip. Part way through this trip we had to take a ferry. They actually drove the train right on to the ferry, made the crossing, and drove the train off. We were able to get off of the train and go upstairs into the ferry during the crossing, but it wasn't terribly exciting because there was lots of fog.

We only had 8 minutes to catch our next train in Hamburg, and our train was running a bit late, so there was actually less time than that. We went as fast as we could to the other track which our train was supposed to be on, but all of the doors on this train were closed and we weren't able to see any signs that said it was going to Frankfurt. Looking back, now that we have had more experience with the trains, I'm guessing that we could have actually made it. But at the time it looked like we had either missed our train or had the wrong track. But on the other side we saw that the train was supposed to be going to Frankfurt, so we jumped on that one. It was indeed going to Frankfurt, but taking about 1.5 hours extra to get there, and it wasn't nearly as nice as the train we were supposed to be on. But oh well, at least we made it.

Once we finally got to Frankfurt at about 9:30 PM, we had to find our hotel. We had the address, but that was it. There was a map in the train station, but it was a very short street, so it took a while to find it. The hotel was only a few blocks away from the station, but our bags were heavy and it wasn't a fun walk. We did make it though. We discovered that the hotel wasn't in the best part of town -- it wasn't too bad...just a bit dark and dirty. But quite a bit of Frankfurt appears to be dark and dirty, so I suppose it could have been worse.