Categories: postcards
Date: 30 June 2008 21:17:43
This traveller's tale begins a fortnight or so before the actual journey began. The final destination was Germany and so I telephoned the good offices of Deutsche Bahn in the well-known hub of railways: Surbiton. There I spoke to a young lady who was clearly suffering from a heavy cold which made the conversation (or at least her side of it) somewhat difficult to work out given her foreign accent coupled with schnuffedly codey sort way of speaking. However, she gave some good advice for my proposed route which was to travel by Eurostar and to buy a BahnCard which would give a good reduction on journeys in Germany and - added bonus - a reduction on routes through Europe (not the UK).
Schnuffly sent me a BahnCard application form which arrived a few days later and I togged myself out in my best bib and tucker to go and have an ID photo taken. Despite spending some time trying to get a half-decent mug shot, I ended up looking about 30 years older and as if I had just escaped from a high security prison. Time was of the essence (I was up to my eyes in the Education assignment) and I had to return the form to Schuffly without further delay.
On the Tuesday, three days before my intended departure early on the Friday morning, there was no sign of the ordered tickets or BahnCard with that day's post. I decided I should phone. The line was engaged. I put it on "ring-back" and continued with my work. The phone did not ring me back - something I did not realise until the working day had almost ended. I phoned Deutsche Bahn and got the "out of office hours" recorded message.
The next day I waited until postie had delivered my usual quota of junk mail - and still there was nothing from DB. I phoned. The line was engaged. I put the receiver down and dialled again. Phew! This time it rang and was answered by the very harrassed-sounding Thomas. His stress levels increased when I told him I hadn't received the tickets which should have arrived about 4 or 5 days earlier. He promised he would look into it and phone me back in 5 minutes. I was doubtful - but was proved wrong when Thomas did indeed phone 5 mins later - with the news that the tickets had not been issued. He promised to issue them forthwith and send them by Special Delivery. They would be with me by lunch time the following day.
The next morning I was up betimes and set up camp by the letter box awaiting the arrival of the precious tickets. At one point, I moved from my post for about 10 seconds in which time postie threw a card through the letter box. I could see that it was a "go to the sorting office to collect your special mail" card. "NOOOOO!" I bellowed. "POSTIE!!!" and ran to the door nearly ripping it off its hinges in my anxiety to catch the postman before he sped off. With the deadline of the Education job that day, I didn't have time to make some long-winded detour down to the sorting office.
The postman stopped in his tracks - he was only half way down my short garden path. "You didn't knock!!" I accused him. "Yes, I did," he quaked, "but you weren't there". "I was almost sitting by the front door!" I cried. He said he'd asked a neighbour to take the long-awaited envelope in. The card he'd posted confirmed this - but I hadn't had time to read the card. He went back up the street to knock at the neighbour's door again and retrieve my tickets. So once that little drama was over, I felt able to finish the Education job in peace and then packed my bag, passport and tickets and prepared to sally forth the next day.