Here’s a recap of my train journey based on the Twitter thread I kept posting as I travelled.
To FOSDEM…
The departure from Bratislava was as planned:
Half an hour in Vienna was just enough for me to grab some coffee and breakfast and board the train to Frankfurt without a hurry:
Unfortunately, soon after we left Linz and headed to Passau, the train broke down. Apparently, it powered down and the driver was struggling to reboot it. After more than an hour at Haiding, we finally departed with a huge delay:
Since the 18:29 train to Brussels I needed to catch in Frankfurt was the last one that day, I was put into a hotel Leonardo across the street from Frankfurt Hbf, paid by Deutsche Bahn, of course. By the time of our arrival in Frankfurt, the delay was 88 minutes.
Luckily, I didn’t have to convince Deutsche Bahn to let me sleep in the morning, they happily booked me (for free) onto a 10:29 ICE to Brussels so I had an opportunity to have a proper breakfast at the hotel and spend some time at Coffee Fellows at the station.
Fun fact: Aachen is called Cáchy in Czech, apparently as a corruption of an older German form ze Aachen.
Having met some Debian people on the train, I have finally arrived in Brussels, albeit with some delay. This, unfortunately meant that I haven’t gone to Vilvoorde to see a friend, so the regional tickets I bought online were useless.
… and back!
The trip home was much better in terms of missed trains, only if a tiny bit more tiring since I took it in one day.
Going to Frankfurt, I’ve spent most of the time in the bistro carriage. Unfortunately, the espresso machine was broken and they didn’t have any croissants, but the tea with milk was good enough.
I’ve used the fifty minutes I had in Frankfurt to claim the compensation for the delay, which (€33) I received in my bank account the next week.
Finally, exactly twelve hours and one minute after the departure, almost home:
