'The best education is found by a smart person while traveling'
~ Johann-Wolfgang von Goethe
This thing started at around 8 am. It's called ET 442, also known as Hamsterbacke or Talent 2. I don't like this kind of trains. In the past, the N-Wagen trains used to run here, with Br111 (formerly 110) and 4 Halberstädter Wagen with a Karlsruhe or Wittenberg head. That was real traveling, I can tell you. More comfortable, more space, real windows. I had to survive for an hour and a half in these trains that look like cheap trains from China. The seats are hard. It's like sitting on a wooden board covered with fabric. But there's nothing to do. It feels like being in a suburban train. Well, it got better afterwards. In Munich, I had almost an hour and a half to not miss my reserved train. I went towards Karstadt, to buy a newspaper or a magazine. I would have loved a sports magazine that includes the English League. But they didn't have it, as I imagined. Then I stayed at the cooking section. After that, I sat in the new Starbucks and had a coffee. 20 minutes before departure, it was time to go towards the platform. I arrived and there was still an ICE train to Dortmund on my platform. I walked a bit further because the carriage where I made a reservation should be there. The train to Dortmund left, and I promptly saw 'Delay approximately 10 minutes, different order of carriages'. Then I thought, well, no problem. I mean, the train will come in such a way that it just stands the other way round. Then I went back to the other end of the platform. The train arrived 6 minutes after the departure time and I couldn't find my carriage 21. I ran once along the entire train, but no carriage 21. 31-38 and the same on the other part of the train. Then I found a lady who works for the DB, but she couldn't tell me where the carriage is either. Until I found the train chief (by the way, you can recognize them by the red band they wear on their arm), and she told me that the carriage numbers of the rear part are still wrong and I should get on carriage 31, which I did 11 minutes after departure. I found my seat and the carriage was quite empty. But what I noticed was that I was sitting on quite old seats. But that wasn't a big deal. The journey started, and after about 6 hours, I arrived. Very relaxed. During the journey, I listened to 2 podcasts, went to the onboard bistro, and slept for 2 hours. As I said, a calm journey, and we reached Altona with a delay of +6. Now I had to go to my hotel. Motel One, Kieler Str. 171 was the address. I arrived there with the S2 and a 10-minute walk. If you want to read about the first impression of the room and the evening experience of the day, I will write that tomorrow. Good night now. Best regards, Daniel
