Days 15-16: Coming Home
We knew in advance Saturday, May 28 was going to be a long day for us, since we’d be traveling backwards in time zones - but it ended up being even longer than anticipated. We checked out of our Stockholm hotel a bit early, sometime around 11-11:30am, took the metro one stop to the T-Centralen station, and from there took the Arlanda Express train straight to the airport. It was busy - we were very glad we left a little earlier than we originally planned. Our flight departed at 2:50pm local time and arrived around 5:30pm local time. I had managed to sleep a bit on the flight; Mark did not. The plane deviated around Providence in order to avoid some bad weather, and in part because of that delay, there were no available gates to disembark. I think we ended up sitting for another 45 minutes. Unfortunately, once we got through customs, we found out that our connecting flight from JFK to BWI was cancelled due to the same bad weather. The next flight would be 11am the next day, and the airline wouldn’t be providing any accommodations as it was weather-related.
I wasn’t too panicked - Mark’s uncle lives in Manhattan and would undoubtedly let us crash if we couldn’t find a hotel. But, we really wanted to get home that night. Amtrak’s last train departed at 9:22pm and arrived at the BWI station around midnight, about the same time as our original flight. So, I bought tickets.
Unfortunately… I bought tickets for the Penn Station in Newark, NJ, not the Penn Station in NYC. I couldn’t find the actual cancellation policy - so rather than book another set of tickets from the NYC Penn Station, we took a 70-minute Lyft ride to the Newark Penn Station.
The Newark, NJ Penn Station is probably the most depressing train station I’ve ever been to. We get dinner at McDonald’s (the only restaurant still open) and go to the platform to wait for our 9:22pm train. Around 9:40pm, the info board finally updates to say the train is delayed (with no overhead announcement). The Amtrak website says the estimated BWI arrival time is now 1:44am, instead of 12:01am, but it also says the train status is unavailable. I call the Amtrak help line a couple of times - first to get more information about the delayed train, then to try and change the time/date for our tickets - but I never get through to a person. At this point I am seriously wondering if we’ll just take turns sleeping at the station until the train arrives. I finally give up, add my name to the callback list, and around 10:30pm we leave for a hotel Mark managed to book. We apparently got the last available room in the hotel - there have been a lot of flight cancellations.
On Sunday, May 29, I wake up around 5:30am despite having fallen asleep around midnight. I don’t know why - body clock still in CEST, I guess? But it ends up being a good thing, because I get a call at exactly 6:00am from Amtrak, which is when the customer service help line reopens. They successfully change our tickets to the 9:22am train, free of charge (even though the train did eventually come - something like a 2:15am departure from Newark). We get breakfast at the hotel, get back to the station, and successfully get on a train home. We finally arrive at BWI train station (which, by the way, is a whole bus ride away from the BWI airport - unlike the Amsterdam or Stockholm or even Paris airports) a little after noon. We actually arrive home before 12:30pm.
The experience was particularly ironic, coming from a trip so focused on public transit and trains. But I don’t think the US is hopelessly behind - the pieces are there, they just need some care.
