Traveling on the Train

Krombacher


It’s finally time to leave paradise and keep on traveling. I have had an amazing time with Anna and her family but it is unfortunately time to move on.

As always I looked for the cheapest way to get from where I am to where I want to be. This time I will be taking the train and going cheap means changing trains multiple times. The plan was to leave Hagen, a town near Anna at 8:40 and arrive in Tuttlingen, where Yvonne lives, at 4:11pm. Yvonne lives in a town called Tuttlingen, which is pronounced Tootlingen and makes me laugh every time I say it. The itinerary for changing trains was as follows: Hagen – Koln – Mainz – Darmstadt – Stuttgart – Tuttlingen. My second train was late and as a result I missed my third train. I went to the information desk and they printed me a new itinerary and now instead of Darmstadt I would be going through Mannheim. This new train was late and I missed my 4th train to Stuttgart and had to catch another train. I made it at 5:30 instead of 4:11, but it wasn’t bad, all of the trains were new and comfortable and one even had electricity so I could charge my laptop and watch some movies.

At the train stations they have separate bins for different kinds of trash to make recycling easier. There are often homeless looking people who walk around and take out the bottles to get a deposit back on them. I saw a man walk by the trash can, look inside and reach in and pull out a large beer can. He shook the can and realized that it was empty and then threw it back in the trashcan. He wasn’t looking for cans for their deposit he was looking for beer. I like beer and especially free beer, but that is a line I don’t want to ever cross.

All of the trains have free bathrooms on them, but I would never realize that I needed to use them until I was about to get off the train. I ended up using the bathrooms at the train station which charge €.5 to use them. That was terrible planning on my part all three times!

I got a sandwich for lunch and there was a tomato on it. I have been eating lots of tomatoes over the last two weeks since La Tomatina without any problems. For some reason the smell of this tomato reminded me of La Tomatina and made me start to gag. I did eat the entire tomato though, gagging and all.

At night we had two birthday parties to go to for people who were complete strangers to me. The first party was at a rented clubhouse type place and had a lot of free food and free alcohol, my favorite kind of party. There were a decent number of people that spoke English and others that tried and I really had a good time. Then we went to another birthday party that was more like a house party and there were free snacks and free drinks. I am such a big fan of free, in fact I think free might be my favorite thing.

Everyone kept asking me “How long are you staying in this part of Germany?” and “Where are you going next?” I didn’t have any answers, I don’t know how long I will stay here, probably until I’m ready to move on. I don’t know where I will go next, I don’t have any plans, I really need to look at a map and try to come up with a plan but as of now I don’t have one. I have some places in mind that I would like to visit but if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, let me know.

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09_12_09 Tuttlingen small