Tübingen – Köln, Germany
March 31st 2007

This was one long journey. Typically a train ride from Tübingen to Köln takes 2.5 hrs, with just one stop in Stuttgart. However that is on the ICE (fast trains), which costs a lot of money. Actually it was only 80 Euros one way, but heck when you are a student with negative earnings and you are presented with cheaper alternatives, the 80 Euros is expensive. So the cheaper alternative was to take the “Schönes Wohenende” (Beautiful weekend) ticket. This costs 30 Euros for 1 to 5 people to travel all day on the Deutsche Bahn anywhere in Germany. Of course, there is a catch to it: One can only travel on the regional bahns (the slow trains). Travel time from Tübingen to Köln was 8.5 hrs. (I also had to change trains 5 times). No one other than Jeff thought this was a good idea..(hmm I wonder why J ). Anyways, so it was Jeff and I and our 5 pieces of luggage that took this trip.

It actually wasn’t that bad. Just the first leg, from Tübingen to Stuttgart was real crowded with no place to sit, but then we found out that there was a football match in Stuttgart. Changing the trains wasn’t as much as a hassle as I thought it would be. Our layovers were anywhere between 10 to 20 min, so it wasn’t bad. Jeff had tons of movies on his laptop, so we ended up watching a movie. Star Wars IV. And this was the first time I watched the movie, yes I know you all find it very strange that I haven’t seen any star wars movie before. In fact, in class in Tübingen we were playing a game where each of us were assigned the name of a famous personality and we had to ask questions to the others to figure out who we were. I was Darth Vader. Of course I had no clue who Darth Vader was, so I wasn’t able to guess who I was. That’s when Frauke (our German teacher) and the other students ragged me about it and made me promise that I have to watch it. So well, I did watch it, just one so far, but it is a start. And now I know who Darth Vader is.

From a little south of Koblenz, the train ride was so picturesque. The train tracks ran along the Rhine for about 2hrs. The scenery was spectacular. I lost count of all the castles and manors we saw overlooking the Rhine. One day, I would love to drive down that road and stop along at any place that caught my fancy.

We reached Köln at 7pm. Took a taxi from the station to our Hostel and checked in to my room. It is like a dorm room, with 2 twin beds and a desk, refrigerator, a closet and a sink. I have access to shared bathroom and kitchen. I haven’t lived like this, so it should be an interesting experience.