On the Train Again

The absolute best thing out of many bests over Christmas at my friend Lisa's family: Lisa's three-year-old nephew Julian and Lisa's mom Ulrike playing together with Julian's puppets. Julian was completely worked up and overtired, but categorically refusing to even think about bed; Ulrike was voicing the witch puppet in a straight-talking Rhineland dialect, telling Julian's frog puppet, "Go tell that boy Julian, he should go to bed!" Julian turned around and in all earnestness informed himself, via the frog, "You should go to bed."


Now I'm on a train out of Germany. (This new USB stick thing that gives me internet access anywhere there's a cell phone network, by the way, is quite possibly my new favorite item EVER.)

I've got some work to do this coming week, but no appointments specifically tying me to Berlin, and at some point I noticed an almost desperate desire to use that flexibility. Because, well, why stay at home if I don't have to?

I think this is what they call being bitten by the travel bug.

So the next couple days I'll be in Bruges, Belgium, and then briefly in Antwerp, before heading home in time for New Year's in Berlin. I noticed already on the train platform, when Lisa and her dad saw me off, that I was almost bouncing with excitement to be headed off for points new and unknown, instead of just the boring old west-east corridor back to Berlin I've done so many times before.


Also, can I just mention that Belgium has possibly the world's cutest trains? Rebecca and I noticed this on our Belgian/Dutch bike tour three and a half(!) years ago - we felt like we were in the prefects' carriage of the Hogwarts Express.