On the last Thursday in September, Marit, Liesel, and Marit’s boyfriend Keith arrived to visit us in Germany. On Friday morning, I said, “Let’s do something really cool tomorrow. Sunday is the last day of the Oktoberfest in Munich, and it will be extremely crowded, so let’s go tomorrow.”
“What a great idea,” Liesel said. “I always wanted to do that.”
My husband, Ken, added, “And it will be cheap. We live close
to Wuerzburg, and Munich
isn’t that far. And with a weekend train ticket, all five of us can travel
there and back for only 34 Euro.”
“It will only take two hours for the trip,” I said. “We’ll
have so much fun.”
Early the next morning, prepared with our cameras and
backpacks, we trekked to the train station, where we got our ticket from the
ticket machine and entered the train.
We started our trip in a train just like this one
We stopped in surprise and stared. Ken and I had taken the
weekend trains before, and always found plenty of empty seats.
We pushed through tightly packed bodies, backpacks, bicycles
and other equipment. The smell of beer floated on top of muffy human smells,
and laughter, excited talking and singing assaulted our ears. Eventually, we
did find some seats in two separate compartments, and called ourselves lucky. Liesel
sat on my lap, and all of us were reasonably comfortable.
Our next stop, just a few minutes away, was Wuerzburg, where
many other people squeezed into the train. Our train stopped in every little
town on the way, and people got on in each of those towns, until we were actually
squeezed in like sardines in a can.
More tomorrow!
More tomorrow!
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