System Malfunction
Rijdt niet door een systeemstoring 😢
When nearly every train from Rotterdam's main station gets cancelled due to a system malfunction a few minutes before your train is scheduled to depart to Utrecht for a short connection to Munich and then onwards to Salzburg and finally Slovenia. Not the best timing....
Gouda
When a missed train connection ends up almost doubling your scheduled 15 hours of journey time, but at least you finally learn the proper way to pronounce the city (and cheese) of Gouda, so the day isn't a total loss....
NB: I don't want to ruin the surprise from the video below, but let's just say when the customer service people at the station were explaining which train I should take to get to Utrecht (before adding with a hearty chuckle that there was no way i was making my connection) I was incredibly confused, before finally realising they were saying Gouda.
Learning (more) new things in Utrecht
Some quality time hanging out in front of Utrecht's main train station, after being told there's no way to get all the way home until the following day.
On the plus side, I did learn what a jackdaw was. Cooling looking corvid. The silver linings are really starting to pile up....
Utrecht Sightseeing
A little Utrecht sightseeing - aka realising you forgot to drop a bunch of already stamped postcards in a postbox at Rotterdam central station, so now have to speedwalk to a supermarket with a PostNL kiosk before the next train to Munich leaves.....
NB: There are allegedly postboxes around the main train station, but I looked all over and didn't see any, so ended up having to go halfway across the old town to some random supermarket, which secretly had a small PostNL station hidden inside.
‘Facebook Museum’
So this 'facebook museum' was apparently a tongue in cheek pop up project highly critical of our new tech bro overlords that was only officially opened at Utrecht Centraal from 14-20 July. Unfortunately this is something I only learned several days later, so didn't actually go inside and check it out when I was there.
Here's a bit of info from a local Dutch language article on it, which includes headings like 'Rotting brain' and 'Toxicity attracts people':
"Facebook, Insta, and TikTok have been declared massively toxic. Screen addiction, polarization, myopia, brain rot; you should have canceled your account yesterday. But that's easier said than done. That's why SETUP is building a Facebook Museum where we can store our most important memories and commemorate the highs and lows of this platform. In this way, we stretch our imaginations to a post-big tech world and, together, bring the end of Facebook closer."
Jesus Christ, that's a big goddamned cathedral!
When you've got 20 mins to change trains in Köln, but don't quite manage to fit its massive cathedral into one frame....
Going to Hell
A trick you learn from frequently missing Deutsche Bahn connections (and losing your seat reservation) is grabbing a spot asap in the dining car.
Unfortunately this one was already standing room only, so it didn't do much. But luckily the bier did. When in Germany after all....
Here ye, here ye, read all about it!
Some surprising front page editorial choices in München. I'll just leave it at that...
Deal of the century
Only €4 for a beer and a brat at Munich's Hauptbanhof feels like the deal of the century after just being in Iceland, where the same thing would literally cost you closer to €40....
When it rains, it pours (literally and figuratively)
When you're just trying to enjoy a quiet beer in the park and psychologically prepare yourself for an all-nighter in various Germanic train stations, but Mother Nature has other plans and a summer deluge sweeps into town, forcing you to take shelter under a tree for a solid half hour with all of your belongings....
One more for the road
One last local one for the road (or technically rails), before catching the late train to Salzburg. With the pouring rain, a bunch of colourful characters ended up congregating in this arcade opposite the station....
Humanity is hopeless
Despite the name of this page, I sincerely try to be an optimistic, glass half full, always look on the bright side of life kinda guy, but this scene was genuinely depressing - in that really deep way that will crush your spirits and ruin the rest of your day, or in this case night.
This was the line for a subterranean McDonald's at München Hauptbanhof just before 930pm on a Wednesday night. Why are people such irrational masochists? There's truly no hope left for humanity and anyone who claims differently is in denial. Thank you for your attention to this matter! TC
Midnight Mozart Balls
You know you might be in Salzburg if this is the first thing you see when exiting the train.
And you know the time might be roundabout midnight if the first thing you see upon exiting the station is loads of rough looking Austrians laying all over the place drinking cheap wine and beer. No photos to share of them though....
Calm before the storm
Catching up on some work at 1am at Salzburg Hauptbanhof, because these luxurious long-stay digital nomading trips to exotic locales like Cuba, Nepal, Malaysia and Egypt aren't going to pay for themselves....
NB: This shot was taken just before every single spot in the room got filled by some of the aforementioned rough looking, inebriated and apparently unhoused locals who were previously outside. Herr Manbun sitting opposite here got a rude awakening when an old guy who looked to be dragging his entire life around on a makeshift bike cart decided to sort through his things and then change all of his underclothes a few centimetres away.
Nightjet to Venice
When the 2.14am Nightjet is totally full (or at least the old school compartments are full of sleeping people), so you get to stand up in the hallway all the way to Villach - a route which offers gorgeous scenery during the day, but doesn't do much for you when it's dark.
And of course this becomes all the more ironically painful when your favourite number - and this is true - is 237....
Sunrise in Villach
Who needs sleep, when you've got a sunrise at 5.48am in Villach, Austria? Getting close now....
Slovenia. It's (still) pretty as fuck!
Slovenia. It's (still) pretty as fuck....
Feel Slovenia, feel free to use that if you want - you're long overdue for a slogan update.
‘Home’, sweet ‘home’
'Home', sweet 'home' to my view, sweet view - some 30 hours after leaving Rotterdam, and exactly 10 months to the day after leaving Slovenia in September 2024....