I just got back from my trip to Rostock yesterday. It was a great time despite the rough start. I ordered tickets from Hamburg to Rostock online. The reason I ordered them from Hamburg from Rostock is because it was cheaper than from Oldenburg to Rostock and I can use my student ID to ride the train to Hamburg for free.
I left Oldenburg at 11:35 Friday morning by train. I took a bus to the train station then I went and asked which train was going to Hamburg. I found out that there was no train that goes directly from Oldenburg to Hamburg and that I have to switch trains in Bremen. That wouldn’t have been a problem, but it meant that I was going to miss the train that I already had tickets for. According to the German train website, there was a train that goes directly from Oldenburg to Hamburg and I had planned to catch that train which would have arrived in Hamburg 15 minutes before the train to Rostock. I ended up getting to Hamburg 20 minutes after the other train had left, so I had to buy another ticket for the next train to Rostock which was 2 hours later. I got something to eat, then wandered around a bookstore in the train station. Then I went into a big shopping area in Hamburg which was just across the street from the train station. After about an hour and 15 minutes had passed, I went back to the train station and found the train. Then I found out that it wasn’t going all the way to Rostock because the train drivers were on strike. It was only going as far as a city called Schwerin and that for those of us going to Rostock, there would be another train that we’d have to catch. That kind of annoyed me, but wasn’t a big deal since we could use the same tickets. We got to Schwerin and I went to the departure board to see when the train to Rostock went. It didn’t go for another 3 hours. That made me quite angry. I went and got something to eat again, then I sat down and read until the train arrived. I finally got to Rostock at about 7:00 pm, when it should have only taken 4 hours to begin with.
The German friend of mine that I met, Rolf, picked me up from the train station with one of his roommates, Frank. We caught a local train and went back to his apartment. Then we waited around for a little while and waited for another friend of Rolf’s who was also coming for the night. After he got there, we went out to a few pubs and a club. We got back at around 4 am.
The next day, Saturday, Rolf and I met up with some of his friends from Rostock and we went to a climbing park. Basically, it was a forested area with a bunch of different climbing and challenging things to do high up in the trees. That was a lot of fun and we spent all day there. In fact, my arms are still sore from it. Afterwards, we walked around the beach, then headed back to Rolf’s apartment. There we watched soccer and talked with Frank and one of his friends.
Yesterday, Sunday, Rolf, Frank and I walked around downtown Rostock so I could see the city. It was a really nice city. We stopped at a restaurant so I could have my first Döner, which is a German food that’s almost like a wrap with lots of meat and vegetables. It was really really good. After that, we went back to Rolf’s apartment so I could get my things and then went to the train station. I had also bought my return tickets online, so I had to be at the train station at around 5:00 pm.
The trip home was uneventful and all the trains went well. It took only 4 hours like it should have in the first place. I got home at around 10:30 pm after the bus ride and everything back from the train station here in Oldenburg.
I also posted some photos of the trip. You can find those here.
