Some days are great, some go less smooth. That was yesterday. I had planned to wrap up some lose ends at work today and travel to Berlin later on. It became a hectic day. Work was stressful due to two server failures. And I barely made it out on time to catch my train. I was on time at the station, but that could not be said about the train. It ran with 15 minutes delay to Utrecht. When I entered the station main hall of Utrecht, there were something like 40,000 (ok, i can not count, but it was crouded). Trains towards Arnhem did not run. And guess which direction I was heading….

At some point the station came to a full stop. All train announcements were removed and nobody had any idea what to do and where to go. It brings a funny weird atmosphere and strangers talking to strangers, being cynical about Dutch railways and stuff. 40 minutes after my ICE was supposed to depart from Utrecht, there was an announcement that the train would arrive at another platform. So everyone ran to that platform where the train was already arriving. The announcement when the train left was that the train was traveling with a delay of ‘52 minutes and 30 seconds’, which was ridiculously precise and brought a smile on most faces.

In Arnhem, Sebas jumped on board and explained the ins- and outs of the ICE seat placing system. Nice info. So we arrived in Duisburg 50 minutes late, which means the connecting train to Berlin was gone for like ten minutes, luckily there was another one an hour later, so we had a chance to eat something. Something I wanted to do in Utrecht, but that queue was simply too big, and I was too stressed to really think about it. The train to Berlin was great, smooth, comfy and it was nice having the time to talk with Sebas about all kinds of aspects of KDE, and Sebas’ Lionmail and my Mailody. Probably some more info later on this weekend.

In Berlin we took the S to Alexanderplatz and from there I should have taken the U to my hotel. But when we entered the right platform, the last train of the night left it. So, for the last bit of the journey a taxi was needed. Well. Not all days go as smooth as you like. On the other hand, I’m in Berlin, in a great hotel and today starts the Akonadi meeting. I’m going to make sure this meeting is going to be stress free and I’m looking forward to it. More smaller updates on my identi.ca….