Photo finishes at the train station - part 1

It started off as a photo finish. It ended in a photo finish. In fact, it should’ve ended quite horribly but luck, which seemed to have disappeared altogether, came back to make things great in the end. Here’s how it went.

LUND TO OSLO

The day before I flew back to Manila, I went to the SJ ticket office to ask about train tickets to Oslo. I had done some research prior to this and so I knew there was a train that departed Lund at 1:22pm and arrived in Oslo at 9:45pm on April 28. The problem was, my mom was still having difficulty securing a flight to Europe. And since there was a possibility that she arrive in Lund after 1:22pm on April 28, I wanted to know what our options were with regards to tickets. I was hoping that we could get flexible tickets. But I guess those would’ve been too expensive. So the guy at the SJ counter suggested that I just buy the tickets when our schedule is finalized. I asked him if they were open even on Sundays, and he said they were, between 11am and 3pm.

So on April 28, my mom and I walk over to the SJ ticket counter at around 1pm and I ask for tickets to Oslo. To my shock, the guy says, I’m sorry but I can’t sell you tickets for that trip anymore. I didn’t get to ask why, but my shock led me to immediately explain to him that the week before, I confirmed with that same office that I should be able to buy tickets on that day. All of a sudden, there was no problem releasing the tickets. I even booked our overnight Oslo-to-Stockholm tickets, as well as my Stockholm-Lund ticket (this is key, because it helps me sort out a major issue later on…).

We’re done by around 1:05pm so that left us about 15 minutes before our train would arrive. My mom and I hadn’t eaten yet, so I thought we could get take-out from Burger King which was just right next to the train station. As it turns out, Burger King had to prepare our burgers, and by 1:15pm I was getting antsy and asked the counter guy if our food was ready because our train was leaving in about 5 minutes. They were nice enough to rush our order, but it was almost 1:20pm when we stepped out of Burger King, and started half-running to our platform.

About 30 seconds after we get to the platform, the train arrives. And about a minute after we stepped inside, the train left the station. Imagine that. We could’ve screwed up the rest of our holiday if Burger King took an extra 1-2 minutes to prepare the food, or if my mom and I didn’t run.

Now if you thought that was a photo finish, wait ‘til you read about my trip back to Lund from Stockholm. More in part 2....