UEFA 033 - Osnabruck

UEFA 033 - Osnabruck

While we had our breakfast in one of the snack shop,

I flipped through the map of Germany, which I bought in Heerbrugg, and planned our way up to Amsterdam in Holland.

I had 2 plans.

Plan A is to visit Mike at Blumenstrasse in Drensteinfurt, which is just some distance from Dortmund. Mike was my daughter’s pen pal and she was a cute girl of about 12 years old. They had been writing to each other for quite sometime.

I had also written to Mike, while I was in Heerbrugg, of our intention to visit her, and she seemed to be accommodating in her reply.

Plan B is to go straight up to Amsterdam, if the visit to Mike’s place was not possible.

After considering the odds and evens, we decided on Plan B. It was a train trip north to Osnabruck, where we had to change to a westward train to Amsterdam. I checked the train timing and found that we had some time to wander about in Osnabruck.

Similar to my trip to Europe in 1986, our passports were not stamped by the immigration officers in Switzerland, France and Germany.

Therefore, as a proof of our visit to Osnabruck, I deliberately, took picture of a bus that had Osnabruck displayed on its electronic panel.

After that we stopped for lunch in a Turkish restaurant. My wife enjoyed the kebab wrapped in round Turkish bread called 'pita' and light English Earl Grey tea.

We went to the train station early, to make sure we do not miss the train.

As the time was drawing near, we get very worried, because, all announcements were made in German.

It made us unsure if the train to Amsterdam is coming or we had missed it. We were also unsure, if were waiting at the right platform.

All praises to Al-Mighty God, who hears everything, including a whisper in the hearts. An European man, a fellow commuter, approached us and made enquiry of our destination. He immediately consoled us that the train is coming in a minute, after knowing that we were going to Amsterdam.

It was a DB train. DB is an abbreviation for Deutschbahn meaning German-train.

We had to stop in Hengelo to change to a Dutch train which will take us straight into Amsterdam. The Dutch train was bright yellow with a little bulge on the top of both end of the body.

Hengelo is at the border of Germany and Holland.

We arrived at Hengelo at 5:30pm. Once again our passports were not stamped by the Dutch Immigration.

Germany in German is called Deutschland.

In French is Allemagne and in Spanish

and Italian is known as Germania.

From Hengelo the train moved on to Amsterdam via the towns Almelo and Apeldoorn. I had the thought of going via the town Groningen, where our football hero, Fandi Ahmad, used to stay when he was playing for Ajax Football Club, but it was 120km north of Apeldoorn.

431 words

Drafted on 07.04.2007

Edited on 22.07.2007 at 0915hrs

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