Train to Køpenhavn

As you can see, I like being able to spell the local spelling. It makes me happy.

Anyways, I left Berlin mid-afternoon to make my way to Copenhagen. I had a stop over in Hamburg, and it presented me with an excellent way to illustrate a bit of what you sometimes experience on trains.

When people buy a ticket, they really only buy passage on the train. They are not always guaranteed a seat. The same goes for me. Since I have an unlimited pass, it does not always mean I will get a seat. I often times have had to sit on the floor for the first hour of the train ride until some people get off and some seats open up. Well, I shouldn't say often, it really has only happened once. I am pretty good at getting myself a seat. You have to be ruthless, cunning and cut-throat. Are you making a child and mother stand up for two hours? Too bad. Is an old person too feeble to stand and must sit down on the floor amongst the acculated filth of a hundred train rides for five hours? It is of no consequence. It's every man for himself on a train. There's no time to consider how your actions will affect others. The seat is your priority, your livelihood, your desinty.

I am perhaps exaggerating a bit, but when that train for Copenhagen pulled up to the station and a crowd of people began shoving onboard to get a seat, that thought process kicked in. That purpose that proceeds thought and consequence.

I was sitting too far back at the platform, so instantly I was at a disadvantage. This was no matter, for I squeezed my way on to the train with the prowess and grace of a gizelle. I was standing, looking down the carriage for an open seat, when a short, elderly man carrying a cello in a case pushed, and I mean pushed, his way ahead of a few people, me included. This would not stand.

As the man pushed his way through the crowd of anxious travelers, I was right behind him, taking advantage of the unnaturally large gap he was creating behind himself. He was my shield. He was my guide to a free seat for a seven hour train ride. He was my savior. We both break free of the crowd and stare down at two chairs. One is at the very back, roomy and spacious, without a seat to it. The other is right beside us, vacant, but surrounded by three other people, one of whom had the BIGGEST LIPS I HAVE EVER SEEN and was drinking liquor straight from a bottle. She only had a few teeth and she made a loud wheezing sound every time she breathed. I weighed by options, and within a split second I had decided. My guitar was set down firmly next to the wheezing woman as the man with the cello made his way to the back of the train to the spacious seat.

The problem with not having a reservation means that you play the lottery every time you sit in a seat, because just because it's free now, does not mean that the person who reserved the seat will show up within the next fives minutes and render your quest for a seat a failure. The trick is sitting in a seat that is not reserved. In Swiss trains it will tell you which ones are reserved and which ones are not, but not with these trains. Each time you sit you play a dangerous game of roulette.

The chances that the glorious spacious seat in the back was unreserved were slim. The old man, in his greed, made a foolish decision. As soon as he sat down, a woman came to ursurp his seat. A look of panic spread across his face as he rose from the chair. He looked sharply to my chair and waddled up to ask me if it was free. "I am afraid this is my chair" I said. The panic that had briefly dissapeared came back, and he grabbed his cello and started to push his way back through the crowd. His efforts were thwarted, though, when he ran straight into the conductor who obviously succeeded him in rank and therefore made the rest of the crowd move away from him, including cello man.

I sat in my chair, watching this and all the time hoping that no one would take my seat. Every person that passed by looking at the seat numbers was an enemy. A horrible enemy who was coming to make my train ride as miserable as the cello mans was going to be. A woman and her child pass by. I remind myself to be cold as ice. Not to let myself feel pity for these travelers without reservations. People continute to pass and the woman next to me continues to drink her alcohol with those HUGE FREAKING LIPS and I sit, cold and calculating, planning my next move in case I was to be removed from my seat.

But then the whistle blew. The train doors slammed shut and the cello man blinked his eyes rapidly, unable to fathom what was happening to him. I looked around once more to see that I was in the clear. Everyone was standing. The woman with her child - standing. The cello man - standing, blinking his eyes still. The other travelers who probably needed to seat more than I did - standing. No one was moving. Translation: No one had anywhere to go. I had just won the seat lottery.

It was at this moment that I allowed guilt to enter my head once more. I stood there, looking at the child who was sucking her thumb and holding her mother's hand with the other hand and felt like a criminal. Like a scrooge. Like I did when I watched those boys from inside my carriage in Italy. An image of myself asking the conductor to move these people from my eyesight entered my mind once again, and I started to laugh. I sat there, chuckling to myself about what had just happened. In complete honesty, the fact that all these people were standing when I was sitting was absolutely hilarious to me. It was hilariously unfair.

And then I noticed the woman next to me, taking a swig from her giant bottle of alcohol, wheezing and coughing amidst her swigs. Perhaps I wasn´t so lucky after all...I turned my head away and slowly remembered that I had a lot more Harry Potter to read and a big fluffy chair to read it in.

Victory was mine.


DISCLAIMER: I am not a horrible person. After an hour (maybe two...just kidding) enough people left the train so that everyone had a seat. I wouldn´t have been able to stand seeing the woman and her child stand for that long. They had a seat within twenty minutes, OK? Plus, it's their own fault for not buying a reservation. And don't tell me you didn't enjoy the story.