“Pardonnez-moi, madame, mais qu’est-ce c’est, la destination de ce train?” Photo by Lily Roberts ’12
Today, I went to Luxembourg. Accidentally.
My greatest European transportation-related fear finally came true: half of the train was going to one country, the other half was going to another, and I somehow ended up on the wrong half.
This was, believe it or not, completely not my fault – I had made a train reservation ahead of time, and the French train guy had printed the wrong seat number under the correct destination on my ticket. Unfortunately, I only discovered this as I saw the front half of the train veering away, towards Germany.
“Pardonnez-moi, madame, mais qu’est-ce c’est, la destination de ce train?” I politely asked the old lady next to me. “Luxembourg!” she jovially replied. “I hope you like chocolate!”
So here’s the sum total of what I can tell you about Luxembourg:
1.) It is, in fact, a real place
2.) It has (at least) one very clean bathroom
3.) If one stands at the ticket counter, demands to go to Frankfurt, and looks like one might collapse under the weight of one’s backpack and burst into tears at any minute, the ticket man will be very accommodating. Completely hypothetically.
So I left Luxembourg and made it to Frankfurt, where I tried to find a frankfurter for lunch. To clarify, I mean the hotdog, not a person from Frankfurt.
I found many Frankfurters, but no frankfurters, so I “settled” for a soft pretzel. From then on, it was smooth sailing to Berlin in, wonder of wonders, an air-conditioned train. After a month in France, where air-conditioning is a sign of weakness, this was blissful.
I chatted (in French) with the Swiss lady next to me, realized that I speak exactly enough German to say “hello,” please,” “thank you,” “excuse me,” and “I’d like one beer” to everyone I meet in this country, and decided to take a nap.
All in all, a successful day.
