Finding Nemo, day three: Basel - Gröbenzell
What the hell just happened?
Once again I was yanked out of my slumber, but I was prepared. I had a spare pair of ear defenders as a result of last night's thunderous omens.
I got a couple more hours.
When I eventually woke up of my own volition, I was a bit confused as to whether the last forty-eight hours had actually occurred or whether it was some kind of fever dream. I looked at my wrist and still had the wristbands to prove that I hadn't just made the last few days up. Satisfied and less blurry, I started to try and defuddle myself and get Sunday under way.
In the end, it was a very sociable morning. I made a friend in the bunk beneath me, a young lad who had come from Paris for Eurovision, who was packing up and getting ready to take a TGV home. I then ventured to the kitchen, where I made friends over coffee and a madeleine with two more effervescent young gentlemen also here for Eurovision. I spoke at length about trains in Bulgaria with an American woman who had come from Sofia, until she suddenly remembered something very important she needed to do literally anywhere else.
After ablutions and coffee, I made my way to the S-Bahn and waited for a train to whisk me to the main station. There, I took a little time to gather some Eurovision postcards from the info centre and faffed about with the Railplanner app trying to choose a train to take me to Gröbenzell. There were many options before I finally decided that the time had arrived for making my mind up: I would go via Zürich on Swiss trains rather than via Karlsruhe on German ones, my logic being that, based on my experience of a similar journey back in November, the trip via Zürich was likely to be very pretty indeed. Neither option required making seat reservations, and in any case the train from Zürich was a EuroCity, so that was sure to be fabulous.
On board the 12:02 Intercity from Basel SBB to Zürich, I noticed something curious: there weren’t many women. It occurred to me that this might be a charming Swiss Sunday ritual. The weather outside was glorious, and bovine dairy queens were lounging on the sun-dappled hillsides, bronzing their udders and waiting for die Schweizer Milchmädchen to arrive and ritually relieve them of their milk. This is a task that I imagine takes all day, so with nothing else to do, the menfolk were free to ride to Zürich together on the train. Frankly, I was amazed by such clarity of thought after a long night out because, really, what other explanation could there possibly be?
These are the quaint traditions that people in Europe would do well to protect. I couldn't quite fathom why they all had so much luggage, but decided not to worry myself with such things as I had done enough thinking for one day.
In Zürich Hauptbahnhof there was no Christmas market to be seen. Instead, there was a Beauty and Wedding Expo taking place under a suspended artistic angel, an event completely devoid of any interest, judging by the numbers – save for the couples dancing the tango together under the clock. I had a little time between trains to watch them before finding a water fountain to refill my bottle so I would be refreshed for the three-and-a-half hours of beautiful Swiss-Austrian Alpy goodness that were to pass my window.
The 13:33 EuroCity to Munich was not the lovely comfy Austrian train with an affordable dining car I'd hoped for, but a shiny new Pendolino with barely enough room for people's legs. I found myself a solo seat and got "comfortable", just as what sounded like an army of Italians got on to discuss their seat numbers at great dramatic length. There were surprisingly only four of them, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in conversation, an activity they enthusiastically pursued with an energy usually reserved for opera or hostage negotiations.
I escaped to the dining car for the cheapest thing on the menu, Butterbrezel and a coffee. I felt like I had been robbed. Not in a back alley, but in the full glare of Swiss efficiency, with a pretzel barely fit for an anorexic mouse and a 6€ coffee that I purposely put milk and sugar in because it was free. Honestly, if I could've escaped with the mug, having been mugged by a coffee, I'd have had that too. I contemplated liberating a menu. It's probably best that I didn't, though, because later in the journey, the dining car lady came down the train looking for someone who'd clearly left without paying.
Her face suggested she was not messing around.
In the end there was not much close-up Alpy goodness to see as, despite the best efforts of the seat, I somehow managed to drift in and out of lovely snoozy time. The bits I saw were very pretty and there were some mountains and lakes to be seen along the way, but it was otherwise mostly green and lush. The journey itself was actually disappointingly desultory, and in a way I wish I'd taken the ICE instead as then, at least, I would've been able to afford to eat rather than trying to metabolise sustenance from the micro-plastics in my water bottle.
The Italians disappeared for a while, an unexpected treat which left the entire carriage near-silent for about half an hour. When they came back with the world's loudest food, I deployed the Italian-cancelling earbuds and slipped into a simmering dream of plump, glistening, and improbably satisfying Deutsche Bahn Vegane Currywurst – manna disguised as sausage. I'd never wanted a sausage more than at that moment.
In Munich there was time enough to find the S-Bahn and make my final journey to Gröbenzell where after decamping, as it were, Hostess and I went to the little place next to the station for falafely goodness. I had a falafel box, such was the folly of my new-found relative wealth, which after so long without actual food tasted to me like coriandery ambrosia.
I paid for both of us and felt rich.
