Walk Wise

It is early. It is dark. And the weather was similar to my placement last year in a sub-Siberian country. It is cold, there is snow. Not little. But a lot! I thought I planned my placement this year in a warm country, or at least compared to last year. My placement this year is in Maastricht, the Netherlands. I will do my placement with a church planting team in the city. I am looking forward to start my placement.

But for now, it is still early. I have to catch a train at 6:18AM and the journey will take almost 3 hours. Two hours later, still dark outside and more snow then home, the ticket collector came and asked for my ticket. That is fine. But I had to move to the front part of the train because this part was going to Heerlen and I had to go to Maastricht. By the next station I went out to walk forwards to sit in the front part of the train. (I could not do this inside the train ) But I was halfway walking outside to the front part when the train left and at a station in the middle of nowhere I had to wait for the next train. Lesson for today: never trust ticket collectors but keep smiling.

At 10 o clock, an hour delay due to the weather and other adventures. I arrived in Maastricht. But nobody was waiting for me. Although I had sent an email with the time I would arrive. So I gave my supervisor a phone call. But he was not answering his phone. After half an hour I called him at home where is wife answered and told me he should answer his other phone. Ok. I will try again but no answer. After several other tries my supervisor answered his phone and picked my up from the station. He said he did not expect me so early. Oh that was disappointing. I explained I sent an email but he never received that email. Strange…

Now in the afternoon everything is fine. I have a nice place to stay, with a nice guy who lives in the middle of the district of the project and I know I am going to like this.

Source: http://iamtrainingformission.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/an-early-morning/