Empress : Kaiserin: Von München nach Nürnberg (Umsteigen)

Samstag, Juni 03, 2006

Von München nach Nürnberg (Umsteigen)

The train arrived before 5am, but since it was my first time boarding Germany's train, the procedures were chaotic. I was all confused and lost at which "Wagen" I should board (I had my seat reserved). I managed to put my German into further use, but it wasn't helping the situation at all. But everything soon came to light and I successfully boarded the correct Wagen and was seating on the correct seat. In the midst of facing the unknown, I had learnt a lot about their train system. Complicated, but it worked fine for me. Complicated, but systematic. Kein Problem. And at 5am the train punctually left München Hauptbahnhof; the sky was starting to brighten.

The scenery was rather lovely, but I was having the inner seat and was also too tired to strain my neck for the fast-passing scenery. This train is the ICE (InterCity Express), and yep, the bullet train. My German Rail Pass allows traveling on ICEs, and I was astounded when the speed of the train reaches 128km/h (In my future train rides in the weeks to come, I saw even higher speed readings.) I believe, that because of the fast speed, my fingers were freezing cold. I was dozing in and out of sleep while trying to figure out when I should alight. Announcements on board were only in German. And really, when they managed a few sentences of English, it was an incomplete translation of what they had said in German. I had a great time laughing at their ~~crappy~~ English as well.