Getting to Metz!

So it's the end of my second full day in Metz and my updates are a little overdue, so here's the story of my travels to Metz.

My plane ticket were from Dulles to JFK to Frankfurt.  Both my connections were delayed while I had already boarded, but there was a really nice tailwind going to Frankfurt which helped us make up for all the delays in taking off.

Getting through customs and picking up my bags wasn't much of an issue and even meeting up with Siri (one of the people going to Oktoberfest with me) went really easy.  We had arranged to travel to Metz together and met up outside of Customs really easily, all due to her purple hat.

Our next steps were taking the train to Metz.  I purchased a ticket in the airport (which is really easy and done all the time) and we walked to our platform.  Our original plan was Frankfurt => Mannheim => Saarbrucken => Forbach => Metz.  We were supposed to arrive at about 5:35, which would give us nearly 1.5 hours to check in at the Residence Lafayette (the apartments we are staying at).  The connection to Mannheim ran like most other European trains (that is, on time).  But when we got to the platform, there was a little announcement next to the information saying that the train wasn't running.  We heard later that a garbage truck drove into the side of the express train we were to take and that the line had been shut down for the day.

So, at the information desk we were given another itinerary: Mannheim => Offenberg => Strasbourg => Metz, which would put us in the Metz-Ville station at 6:58, 2 minutes before check in closed.  We figured there was a long shot that we might be able to check in that night, so we were still pretty hopeful.  Sitting on the train however, there was an announcement in German that made the three locals in front of us laugh.  We just smiled and chuckled, pretending to know what was going.  We must have made some comment at some point, because one of the ladies sitting across from us suddenly started explaining what happened.  There was a medical emergency in one of the cars and a doctor had been called to help.  After about a 45 minute wait on the platform, the train finally started moving.  We figured that we wouldn't make the next train by a long shot, so we had to wait for another hour and a half before we could finally make the connection to Metz.

Once we were in Metz, Siri (who has been here before) grabbed us a cab and we finally got to the dorm, to find it dark and locked.  Fortunately, there were a few people who showed up and happened to be the few that Siri knew before getting here.  We were able to sleep on their floors for the night and I was finally able to check into my room the next morning.