Fahrschule = driving school
Wednesday, December 30. 2009
Deutsche Bahn and delays...
Today I am on my way back to Tuebingen. And I am happy that I have a bit of experience on how the trains and their delays are working. For some reason, all the long distance trains that coming from the north to Muenster are delayed. So already when I booked and printed my ticket at home, I new that I was not in a rush. But I could use the extra 30min to check my options. Either I could stay on my first train, continue all the way to Stuttgart and wait to get to Tuebingen. That delay might have entitled me to a partial refund. The other option is to use another faster train to get to my destination in a better time.
My parents dropped me of at the train station in Muenster and with a delay of only 50min I finally left Muenster, planning to catch an ICE in Cologne. Arriving in Cologne, there was a bit of confusion. At least for a lot of the other passengers. Living in Tuebingen, I got used to some happenings about the trains there. Some trains arriving from Stuttgart are split in Tuebingen into three parts with two of them continuing their journey to different places and one of them staying in Tuebingen. Also the IRE going from Stuttgart to Tuebingen is usually appended with an extra train part. So when the first part of that train arrives in Tuebingen, all passengers that did not hear, understood or trusted the announcement, will run after this first part of the train. The other 20% are usually waiting for the other empty half of the train to arrive. Very relaxing to find an empty set of seats.
In Cologne now, they just did these two things with mich longer ICE trains. I suppose some people got a good workout by walking up and down the platform. The first part of the train was going up north towards Dortmund and my train was supposed to leave only 5min later on the same platform. Some people were very unsure and were hoping on and off the train thinking it might be the other train. At the same time at the end of the train, and empty part was waiting with locked doors and naturally people were trying to get in there as well. Some confusion got cleared when the first part of that ICE left the station and the people saw that there was still another ICE waiting on the same platform. So everyone was walking, running and dragging luggage to the other end of the platform where the train with the closed doors was. Then this part was moving to the other end of the platfrom and 80% of the people were walking, running and dragging luggage along those 100 meters.
The rest of us were waiting patiently for the part to arrive and now I am sitting in an almost empty car of the ICE train heading for Frankfurt Airport while the first part of the train must be rather crowded. As a bonus, I will probably arrive as planned in Tuebingen.
If I had my passport with me, I would consider to get off there and take the next to somewhere...
The other nice thing about this ICE is that I have internet access. At least the webpages related to Deutsche Bahn are free of charge to access (but apparently not the new TLD railnet.train). And lucky me can see that my connection from Mannheim to Stuttgart is delayed. Now I have to hope to get my connection to Tuebingen on time. At least I can make myself a list with the connections from Stuttgart to Tuebingen. An almost complete list. The IRE connections are not listed at the moment due to some technical difficulties with these type of trains.
***
Now I am on my train from Mannheim to Stuttgart. The original delay of 10min increased to 25min. I think the Deutsche Bahn has a new popular excuse: "Hohe Streckenauslastung" (Is that the euphemism for traffic jam when it comes to trains?) - at least I heard it a lot today. The guy in the seat next to me agrees.
And if there is no IRE running at a good time for me, I will still have a delay of more than an hour. Maybe I could saved myself the trouble of changing trains and just stayed on the original one. It should have arrived in Mannheim by now and should be on its way to Stuttgart in a few minutes while I am typing this paragraph. Oh well, at least it was more interesting this way. Staying for hours on the same train can very boring. Especially if there are many empty seats.
...
Now in Stuttgart and sitting in the train to Tuebingen. The only issue is that the train is not scheduled to leave for another 30min. And it will take about an hour to get to Tuebingen. I guess this will be the most boring and annoying part of this journey. I have to admit that there is a slighty faster connection to Tuebingen going through Herrenberg. But I am not going to risk that the train will arrive late in Herrenberg. With this train, my scheduled arrival is "only" 60min late. Wonder if I can get this confirmed. Although compensation is only given when one is more than 60min late.
...
Waiting a little longer so that passengers from another train can come onborad...
Ok... only 3min wait. Finally moving.
...
Home.
...
Senk ju vor träweling wif Deutsche Bahn. Hau abaut aua häppi aua späschäls vor ohnli...
My parents dropped me of at the train station in Muenster and with a delay of only 50min I finally left Muenster, planning to catch an ICE in Cologne. Arriving in Cologne, there was a bit of confusion. At least for a lot of the other passengers. Living in Tuebingen, I got used to some happenings about the trains there. Some trains arriving from Stuttgart are split in Tuebingen into three parts with two of them continuing their journey to different places and one of them staying in Tuebingen. Also the IRE going from Stuttgart to Tuebingen is usually appended with an extra train part. So when the first part of that train arrives in Tuebingen, all passengers that did not hear, understood or trusted the announcement, will run after this first part of the train. The other 20% are usually waiting for the other empty half of the train to arrive. Very relaxing to find an empty set of seats.
In Cologne now, they just did these two things with mich longer ICE trains. I suppose some people got a good workout by walking up and down the platform. The first part of the train was going up north towards Dortmund and my train was supposed to leave only 5min later on the same platform. Some people were very unsure and were hoping on and off the train thinking it might be the other train. At the same time at the end of the train, and empty part was waiting with locked doors and naturally people were trying to get in there as well. Some confusion got cleared when the first part of that ICE left the station and the people saw that there was still another ICE waiting on the same platform. So everyone was walking, running and dragging luggage to the other end of the platform where the train with the closed doors was. Then this part was moving to the other end of the platfrom and 80% of the people were walking, running and dragging luggage along those 100 meters.
The rest of us were waiting patiently for the part to arrive and now I am sitting in an almost empty car of the ICE train heading for Frankfurt Airport while the first part of the train must be rather crowded. As a bonus, I will probably arrive as planned in Tuebingen.
If I had my passport with me, I would consider to get off there and take the next to somewhere...
The other nice thing about this ICE is that I have internet access. At least the webpages related to Deutsche Bahn are free of charge to access (but apparently not the new TLD railnet.train). And lucky me can see that my connection from Mannheim to Stuttgart is delayed. Now I have to hope to get my connection to Tuebingen on time. At least I can make myself a list with the connections from Stuttgart to Tuebingen. An almost complete list. The IRE connections are not listed at the moment due to some technical difficulties with these type of trains.
***
Now I am on my train from Mannheim to Stuttgart. The original delay of 10min increased to 25min. I think the Deutsche Bahn has a new popular excuse: "Hohe Streckenauslastung" (Is that the euphemism for traffic jam when it comes to trains?) - at least I heard it a lot today. The guy in the seat next to me agrees.
And if there is no IRE running at a good time for me, I will still have a delay of more than an hour. Maybe I could saved myself the trouble of changing trains and just stayed on the original one. It should have arrived in Mannheim by now and should be on its way to Stuttgart in a few minutes while I am typing this paragraph. Oh well, at least it was more interesting this way. Staying for hours on the same train can very boring. Especially if there are many empty seats.
...
Now in Stuttgart and sitting in the train to Tuebingen. The only issue is that the train is not scheduled to leave for another 30min. And it will take about an hour to get to Tuebingen. I guess this will be the most boring and annoying part of this journey. I have to admit that there is a slighty faster connection to Tuebingen going through Herrenberg. But I am not going to risk that the train will arrive late in Herrenberg. With this train, my scheduled arrival is "only" 60min late. Wonder if I can get this confirmed. Although compensation is only given when one is more than 60min late.
...
Waiting a little longer so that passengers from another train can come onborad...
Ok... only 3min wait. Finally moving.
...
Home.
...
Senk ju vor träweling wif Deutsche Bahn. Hau abaut aua häppi aua späschäls vor ohnli...
Sunday, August 3. 2008
On my way to the Airport
6:10am
Good morning. I am sitting on the train now, the sky is slowly getting brighter and the sun is rising soon. I am having two simple buns with cheese for breakfast for only 1.60 Euro each (note to myself: find out how to type the Euro symbol on a foreign keyboard). And I saw that cows can indeed sleep lying down on their side and stretch out all four legs. Either that or the cow was dead.
Anyways, I do not think that I will be blogging onboard the aircraft, I think the space in economy class would make that actually quite uncomfortable, too. And right now the only topic I could think about would be how tired I am.
I am slowly getting curious about the other people that will travel with me. There is one fellow AIESECer from the LC in Dortmund who will also work at NCKU and there is a local AIESEC chapter at Tainan university, but it has been a little difficult to get in touch with them. I believe they are in between semesters now, usually a period with low activity.
6:35am
Hmm, my train just stopped in the middle of nowhere. I hope we are not yielding to the short short regional train that is passing us just now? We should be in Dortmund trainstation now... O h announcement, have to wait a little more, another train is still blocking the track ahead of us. Well, hope not for too long, gotta catch a flight.
6:37am
Moving on... slowly...
Good morning. I am sitting on the train now, the sky is slowly getting brighter and the sun is rising soon. I am having two simple buns with cheese for breakfast for only 1.60 Euro each (note to myself: find out how to type the Euro symbol on a foreign keyboard). And I saw that cows can indeed sleep lying down on their side and stretch out all four legs. Either that or the cow was dead.
Anyways, I do not think that I will be blogging onboard the aircraft, I think the space in economy class would make that actually quite uncomfortable, too. And right now the only topic I could think about would be how tired I am.
I am slowly getting curious about the other people that will travel with me. There is one fellow AIESECer from the LC in Dortmund who will also work at NCKU and there is a local AIESEC chapter at Tainan university, but it has been a little difficult to get in touch with them. I believe they are in between semesters now, usually a period with low activity.
6:35am
Hmm, my train just stopped in the middle of nowhere. I hope we are not yielding to the short short regional train that is passing us just now? We should be in Dortmund trainstation now... O h announcement, have to wait a little more, another train is still blocking the track ahead of us. Well, hope not for too long, gotta catch a flight.
6:37am
Moving on... slowly...
Monday, November 12. 2007
Trip to the Mercedes Benz Museum
Today the weather was cold cold and gloomy again. But since I stayed already at home for the last couple days, I had reason enough to get out and went with an international student group to visit the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart. The other reason was that I paid for that trip already anyways. It was actually a quite interesting museum, though the guide who was showing us seemed to be rather new and not really having a behaviour that I would associate to Mercedes Benz (What is this company now called anyways...?). But luckily to could explore on our own which was a good opportunity to take a lot of pictures. Even though I am not interested in cars...
Find all my pictures here (click).
The way back was in an overly crowded train for 45 minutes standing on each others feet with bad air and having water we breath out condensing and dripping down the old windows. And despite the train being filled beyond capacity, the conductor still had the nerve to say that the seats and space in the first class was not to be taken by us second class passengers. The bad thing about this: In these train the first class is basically just a small compartment with the same set's of seats. Nothing special about it at all besides being separated by a glass door. Ridiculous!
Mercedes Benz Museum
Ergonomical Simulator
Oldtimer
International
Race Cars
Find all my pictures here (click).
The way back was in an overly crowded train for 45 minutes standing on each others feet with bad air and having water we breath out condensing and dripping down the old windows. And despite the train being filled beyond capacity, the conductor still had the nerve to say that the seats and space in the first class was not to be taken by us second class passengers. The bad thing about this: In these train the first class is basically just a small compartment with the same set's of seats. Nothing special about it at all besides being separated by a glass door. Ridiculous!
Saturday, September 22. 2007
Not my usual desk
When travelling home to Münster or back to Tübingen, taking the IC instead of the ICE (Inter City Express) means travelling for an extra hour or two, but it is cheaper and you get treated to the nice view of the Rhein-river for quite a while. Watching the ships, the little towns, castles, ruins and the fields for winegrowing can be quite distractive.
Sitting next to window though is having the disadvantage that the people usually watch your direction to enjoy the view, but I always feel they are watching me working.
My desk
The river
The little towns
and the fields with grapes and ruins on top
Sitting next to window though is having the disadvantage that the people usually watch your direction to enjoy the view, but I always feel they are watching me working.
