If you're traveling on a train within German borders, you'll find that it's not like most trains in the U.S. With, for instance, New Jersey Transit, there are maybe 60 seats per train car. Sometimes you sit facing the other passengers, but even in this case, you generally can flop the seat around to face the other direction. In Germany, each train car is compartmentalized into 10 pods, each of which contains 6 seats, 3 facing 3. The pods are claustrophobic, airtight inventions with one window each, but no ventilation, no legroom and thick plastic, possibly soundproof, bulletproof walls. If you've seen Aliens, it's the same idea.
Since you have no control over who you neighbors will be, and no contact with the outside world once you're in, locating your pod assignment is a little like being in Aliens. It's also like boarding an airplane. For instance, lemme recap a recent flight I took on American Airlines. I had seat 11C, or something like that. When you first get on the airplane you crane your neck forward past the line to see what's on the far shore. So, I'm craning, and up ahead I see one row that looks like it might conceivably be row 11 and there's a clear-eyed, quiet middle-aged man sitting there with a pocket-protector, absorbed by machinery, who will not bother me. But that would be too lucky. That would be row 9, which means row 11 is ... no! It's the two smootching teenagers from back in the terminal with hysterical private jokes about other people. Dang! At least they won't try to talk to me. No, wait. That's not right side of the aisle. I glance across the aisle. There's my seat, 11C, and next to it, in the middle seat, 11B, is an enormous man with gold jewelry in a Bears jersey. He sees me looking at him and he tries to look away but I'm there and there's nothing either of us can do. The jig is up. He gets up to let me in. Once I'm inside, barricaded between the double-paned airplane window and big, Bears-rooting sausage legs, the Second Coming could come and go and I'd still be stuck there with an eternity of pee to hold.
Being on the German Bahn is scary but in an entirely different way. For one, you're looking directly across an aisle the width of a protractor into the faces of three people whose legroom you're taking up. Two, you may or may not have to watch them pull delectable little homemade Easter treats wrapped in wax paper out of their bags and eat them in front of you. Getting on at Dresden, I was looking for Sitzplatz 26. I pass compartment 1-6, followed by 7-12. Up ahead I see a nice, dimly lit cubicle with what appears to be no one in it. How exciting! But no dice. The cabin with the dim lights is locked, and there's a loud din coming from 25-30. I peer into 25-30 from behind the door. Three snarling children are locked in a battle to the death over the heads of two huge mothers with huge buttockses. Rolling around on the floor and covering all six seats are coke cans, wrappers, small backpacks, shoes, coats, other small things, and possibly another child. They're moving so fast I can't tell. I'm not sure what language I'm hearing, and the walls are definitely shaking. I bolt into the hallway, and I think, I can just maybe stand here for 3 hours. That would be just fine.
But no, there are 3 unfriendly Czechs five cars down. I will sit with them.
Dresden was lovely. I could show you pictures, but you could also look on the web. Instead, I'd like to share some photos of Dresdeners and what they eat.
Are you getting a sense for the size of these things? Here, look again.
No, it's not a long stick of special Easter bread. It's a really big hotdog.
And now, for something much prettier.
It's Fred! In other news, I was sorry to see Fred leave Berlin ... for Paris. Fred spent his entire time in Berlin helping me look for a bathroom, and he didn't even get to go in the Reichstag.
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