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Travel Journal Photos |
German hospital food & hospitality
My trip by the numbers Tomorrow morning, I'll be flapping my arms towards Chicago O'hare. I arrived in the Netherlands today from Germany and spent the afternoon in Leiden--a beautiful city with more character, less vice than Amsterdam. Between the Netherlands and Germany, I rode an ICE3 train: the latest generation of Deutsche Bahn trains stitching together the European mainland. They cost $36M and cruise at ~150MPH. The outside is streamlined like a jet, the interior has wood paneling and marble in the bathroom. Using a touch screen in the car, I was able to search in English and print out a few Dutch trains from the entire European rail timetable. Germany, whose countrymen reneged on a job offer and travel expenses an hour before I left for this trip, continued to inflict pain the minute I crossed the border on my return trip. I was riding an train overnight to Köln. The first four hours from Copenhagen were peaceful. I had the couchette compartment to myself and used the quiet to catch up on my journal. Just as I was ready to go to sleep, the fun began. At the first stop in Germany, five loud drunken snorting yelling 30-something yuppie-trash businessmen piled into my compartment. They immediately began pouring themselves vodka and OJ, smoking and chucking trash out the window. I sicked the conductor on them once for the smoking in the tiny nonsmoking compartment; although they relit a few times afterwards. (Nichtraucher, bitte!) They wouldn't shut up even lightly until about 3 am. A couple hours later, they departed at the stop before mine. "Goodbye," they said. "See you in Hell," I didn't respond. I took another train into Trier, to spend two days with Mirja, whose fault it is that I now know what German hospital food tastes like... her last steps to practicing medicine are through Trier and she treated me to the hospital cafeteria for breakfast before I left town today. Candidly, the food was very good even though all I had were fresh bread, cheese, juice and yogurt. Trier is the oldest city in Germany. Surprisingly, it has retained a lot of its architecture from the past 2000 years--from Roman ruins to quirky baroque facades. Nonetheless, its cathedral is kept from collapsing by hidden steel suspenders and the Golden Arches have infected the town square. Trier is a small town, but it dwarfs the small villages that trace the train tracks to Köln: mountains terraced with vineyards and lightly dusted with clusters of houses--with a compulsory train station, church and village idiot. Prior to Trier, I serendipitously job hunted at the Nordic Comdex. The Scandinavian version of the world's largest computer show happened to be in Göteborg the same time I was. I canvassed the show floor with a badge reading "David McCreery, hire me: web developer." I uncovered a handful of Swedish companies looking to grow; including one that does internet gaming. However, I am not sure if I would take a job in Sweden: in the northern parts, sunlight suffers from narcolepsy in the winter and insomnia in the summer. Winters can reach -15'C. When I get back home, I will follow up with the companies I met on this trip. I don't know for sure what my ultimate livelihood will be. I just hope it is fun and fulfilling. David McCreery |
