Europe Day 4: Munich to Berlin
Carriages might be missing
The 2nd train, from Munich to Berlin, was a spaceship: sleek and modern. I couldn’t find the carriage number for the pre-booked seat, so I took the first one I found. So far, people were casual about seats. However as more and people filled up the carriage, I heard polite but heated debates starting. Something was not right, it was becoming a spaceship squeeze. I felt bad for the person in heels standing to my right (their outfit alone deserved a comfortable journey), so I donated my seat thinking I could still fine one. Only to discover that there were people everywhere in the aisles, sitting on luggage, standing, carriage after carriage, until it became too much of a hassle to keep moving and I resigned myself to a floor spot in front of the toilets.
I was not alone, 6 of us were cramped and constantly shifting ourselves as people made their way to use the facilities (they were classy - the toilets). Halfway into the 4 hour ride, I noticed that the person next to me was reading Death's End by Liu Cixin! That book upgraded my faith in existentialism to a cosmic level. When I finished it in the middle of the night, I never felt more like a grain of sand in the universe. Seeing this niche-ish choice of public reading display as a sign, I proposed a conversation and my fellow sci-fi reader was more than happy to oblige. Two hours later and we are talking about how the world could be made a better place (while occasionally assisting fellow passengers with the sticky toilet door). I did not get the name of this “nuclear physicist PhD going to a Rolling Stones concert with their father”, but the conversation made the trip elapse quickly.
There were a few stops, but never empty seats (there was one but my companion and I were deep into equating career politicians with career academics). I did learn that 8! carriages were just “missing” for this journey. “That’s the German railways for you” a man kept saying knowingly to every confused tourist. It made me feel at one with the world. Such a sentence: “That’s <insert name of service, organisation, or country here> for you” is universal.
They never checked our tickets on this crowded spaceship.