...there's no place like home!
We're back now, after a long haul that started on a night train from Berlin to Frankfurt (more on that later), a (fortunately direct) flight to Dallas, and then a long car drive back to Austin. The funny thing is that now that we're back home, Toli's running around in his skivvies, and Christine is the one complaining about the cold. What is *up* with that?
There was a nice little coda at the very end of our trip. Because we wanted to stay in Berlin as long as possible with Uschi and Michael, Toli and I had decided to take the night train to Frankfurt where we would be flying out the next morning. However, we had to switch trains in the middle of the night, so we decided not to book a couchette or bed or anything like that and just try to snatch a little sleep before getting to Frankfurt.
The train out of Berlin was the fast ICE train, and it was Toli's first time on it. He was really too exhausted to enjoy it thoroughly, but he at least got a few "wows" in as the train accelerated to 250km/hour. Of course, the irony of the fast train is that we actually arrived *20 minutes late* to our destination. The train had to wait for some late transfer passengers coming from another train, and of course, that started a cascade effect because the train we had to transfer to had to wait another 20 minutes for us to arrive as well so we could get to Frankfurt!
Once we got on this second train though, an InterCity regional train, we sighed a big sigh, felt our troubles were over, and promptly fell asleep. Less than an hour later, we woke up to very loud singing. A group of about a dozen singing drunk Germans boarded our car (lucky us!) and proceeded to lead each other through one drinking song after another. I asked one of them if there had been a hockey game or something that night, and they replied no, it's Karneval! Should have known - we picked them up in Cologne, which is one of the central places to celebrate Karneval, the season that runs from Twelfth Night (January 6) to Ash Wednesday. They were a friendly and boisterous bunch, all dressed up in loud clothes and drinking beer and wine (generously offering us some as well, but we politely declined). Just imagine the Stanford Marching Band (another loud and drunk bunch of merry musicmakers) some twenty years older, and there you have it. We struck up conversation with a particularly chatty couple who told us about all the parties and music in Cologne, and they eventually invited us to skip our flight and join them in Bingen (where they lived). Which clearly, we also declined. I think what struck us about the whole thing was that they were all quite a bit older than we are, but they had the energy to stay up drinking and partying until 3 or 4am...and still go back to work the next day!
Anyway, we did make our flight, and now we're back home where we belong! The next few days will be about getting some rest and catching up, so if we don't call or email you right away, we hope you understand! Also, keep coming back to visit because we'll be uploading some pictures from our trip in the next few weeks.
Welcome home!!!! Enjoyed all the stories.
Marjorie