nught Train germany

Travelling through "Geilhausen" -- which transllates to "horny-hausen" (near Busenhausen "booby-hausen" in the "westerwald" area -- We arrive at train station "Au". This translates to "outch". A four engine passenger jet romantically passes overhead, the sun is setting in deep orange skies and dark grey-blue clouds are providing a dramatic backdrop to a few dozen young men arriving on the platform, each one of them equipped with one or more (glass-deposit) beer bottles which they obviously intend to drink on the hour long train-ride. Very civilised. There is no hint of rowdyness, only some loud laughter here and there. Two young ladies wait for the same train, in the dimly lit evening and orange sodium-lamp light, unfazed by the pulk of alkoholised testosterone.
Twenry minutes into the journey we can hear bottle-tops falling on the floor

4 nov 2011
Hotel Europa one year anniversary party with food, wine and witches.
Great interior decoration, couch chairs sofas and low tables provide a lovley cozy livid-room atmosphere.

8 november 2011
Going out with mum to the sauerbratenpalast, eating traditional sauerbraten (pickled roast) with printensosse, sauce made from a spicy sweetbread. Karthaeuserblut. Mum thinks she has the bloodline of monks frim Karthaeuser monastery, because she likes to be alone, solitaer, hermit. While this makes no sense (solitary monks don't procreate a blodline)
It sounds phantastic after a few beers (koelsch actually).

9 november 2011
German day of fate. On this day a lot of fateful events happened, The wall opened in 1989 and all kinds of hitler mayhem.
Anyway, today we were trying to go to a lecture by USA astronauts, but the venue was full. All technical students went, but the lecture was only yank self-gratulation wank.

14nov2011
The day of the great round-the-globe 40 hour marathon has begun at sunrise. Spaceweather told me this morning that the sun has an unusually large magnetic and electric condition, there is a hyder flare event, a large filament that cuts accross a quarter of the sun's surface.

Cologne train station was amazing, every minute a train, to places like basel amsterdam, duesseldorf and frankfurt airport. I am lucky again with my ticket that I booked and credit-card paid on the web for 29 euros. Only two trains were late in cologne, and mine was one of them. I told the conductor that the delay my train EC7 to frankfurt airport via Mainz will propably miss the connection in Mainz, so he said, "come in here" -- pointing to the sleek bullet train accross the platform. So now I am riding the 300 km/h machine -- romantically named "train 503", sitting in the buffet carriage sipping a 2.80 euro (5 nzd) strong coffee. Bad luck that there is a loud-mouth us-american approx 30 year old white woman blathering nearby and no amount of coughing and ostensive throat clearing by various passengers seem to make her speak more softly.
We all hear about her graduating and her sister and friends and having a harder time hearing ourselves think. I guess it is like the US american culture of having a TV blaring away 24/7.

I will try to find another seat now. The German guy with her is encouraging her to speak all the time.

I end up in a comfortable window seat with two middle aged german ladies talking muted in low, pleasant voices about intelligent subjects. I involve myself in the discussion about piano lessons for children and tell them I am going to New Zealand.. And 8 minutes later we arrive at the stylish airport train station.

Check in, passport, security, all goes quick, unthretening and respectful, unlike in the fascistoid anglo world.

Dirk Meuser is the captain on the A380 to Tokyo, the spanking new shiny plastic jet is ice-cold. I am in the last seat 94A, the two seats next to me are empty, as the lady at the gate-desk had promised me. Yey! I play with the entertainment system, first checking out the three onboard cameras. 1 facing downwards at nose wheel 2 looking horizontally forward from the nose wheel 3 overlooking the whole aeroplane from the vertical stabilizer, the upright tail wing-thing.
It is sunny with fog, lunch hors d'oeuvre is sushi maki with smoked salmon, entree is katsu-ni don japanese escalope of pork rice radish and onion sauce. Dessert is Linz Tart. "We are happy to serve Onigiri at your request" it also says on the menue fine print.

Pushback 13h27 two minutes late.
Off we go.

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