After stumbling out of bed in a state of...well, lets just say it was not optimal for long day on multiple trains we forced ourselves to take showers and eat some of the hotel breakfast. We headed back over the the nearby train station that luckily really close to the hotel. Matt Shane and I basically crawled onto the early train only to find that it was insanely packed. We had this bright idea to take regional trains back to berlin and this was suppose to take only 3 hours longer than taking the high speed I.C.E. train. Morgan may have been the wise one here and took the ICE even though it cost more money because she had Syd to worry about and didnt want to have to change trains a bunch and carry him around and such. So anyways we saved 100 euro or about 130 bucks by not taking the ICE and thought we were soooo smart for doing this. Well, about half of germany was thinking the same thing and sardines we would become for the next 11 hours.
The first train ride was the longest and was about 4 hours. Unfortunately the only available seats on the whole train were in the dining car on a high table seat that was only had about 5 inces of butt space. Lets just say it was very uncomfortable and the fact that we were in a state of post drinking distress this first 4 hours was NOT good times.
After getting to the first station where we had to change trains we realized how many people were planning on doing the same thing and it was a few hundred. Oh and it was freezing cold outside and the train was running 25 minutes late due to “weather conditions” Well this sucked because this means we miss the connection we planned to get at the next stop. Realizing that we were maybe going to have to fight for a spot on the train we decided to get right up to the edge of the platform to hope that a door would happen to land right in front of use. Sure enough the 2 car train...yes, this regional train was only two frickin cars for 200 people and it was already practically full stopped with a door conveniently directly in front of us! Talk about a lucky break! We got on and about 150 people were not so lucky and lucky was totally relative too. We were soooo lucky that we got to stand in the isle.
As the trains changes continued the crowds became less and less. Train number three we will call “Beware of flying luggage.” We thought we were lucky when we got a small room with about 10 seats in it but turns out we were not so lucky we picked the only seats next to a group of german white trash guys that decided that it was best if they yell the entire train ride. To top it off they put a huge heavy bag in the rack above the seats but didn’t realize that it was too big to go up there and when the train turned a corner guess what flew off the rack and straight into my kidney...Yep, the luggage hence the name of this train ride. It hurt like hell and was almost like getting punched in the kidney but what could I really do so I just pushed the bag off me gave a look and then laid my head back on the table to try to get some sleep.
Before catching train number four we had about 45 minutes so we grabbed a quick bite to eat against my better judgement at McDonalds....Gross as usual but it was fast and stopped our stomachs from eating their own insides. Train number four was mellow and we shared a small room on the train with a girl named Matilda. Matilda was going to visit her boyfriend for Silvester (we learned that silvester is what the germans call new years eve and new years day is called new years). It was fun to hang out and talk about the german education system and how it compares to the US system for a little bit and how she is in school to become a doctor. This was a short train ride and soon enough we hopped out of train number four and practically ran across the platform to catch the fifth and final train back to berlin!
Since this change was at a small station the connecting train waited for us all to get on even though our previous train was a few minutes late. Train five was also a bit crowded but at least we all had seats and we were in the final 1 hour and 30 minutes of what turned out to be an 11 hour day of traveling back to berlin. Hey we did save around $130 bucks which was nice and all of our trains went through some seriously beautiful countryside. I think we were actually going a round about way to berlin through the german mountains.
We made it back to berlin grabbed a quick bite to eat at falafel UFO around the corner from Shane and Morgans place and then crashed out around midnight. We didnt get up until 10am and man oh man was that needed because it was now new years eve and we were in for a late night or should I say early morning!
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