Crazy Train, Fancy Cars

We took the train from Prague to Munich yesterday. We were repeatedly told that we didn't need any reserved seats for this train - just our tickets. We showed up at the train station we were supposed to depart from, and were told that we needed to go to another train station about 15-20 minutes away by metro. Taken by surprise, but too sleepy to dwell on the strangeness of this, we headed to the other station. Our train was already waiting on the platform. We walked through a couple of carriages without finding any seats and finally found a compartment with four open seats. I grabbed it right away and beckoned Manish and Huat Chye to come over quickly.

Of course, we weren't the only ones who had to deal with this. More people found their way to the new train station as the train's departure time approached. A fair number got on the train, but a large number were left behind. For those who got on the train, finding a seat was quite impossible. A girl grabbed the remaining seat in our compartment, while her brother and all their luggage remained in the passageway (he had a pillow and an ipod - and made himself quite comfortable on the filthy floor :)). The passage was quite full; even the doors to the bathrooms were blocked by people on the train without seats. I hadn't seen a train like this in a long, long time - the last time was in 1992, when my family traveled in the unreserved coach on a train from Bombay to Ahmedabad for an urgent last-minute thing. It was quite the experience - and I was amazed by how people adapted to these circumstances. Tourists really are hardy people.

Of course, it was only fitting then to head to the BMW Welt (where they show off their new cars) once we got to Munich. Manish ogled at the cars, Huat Chye marveled at the design of the building and I got engrossed in their branding videos on a table top touch screen (yes, I was ready to go work for them as I finished watching these - good job, design team!). It really is impressive that BMW spends that much money marketing their cars - a whole museum for the new cars (in addition to one we didn't visit that housed the old cars!).

In these last couple of days, I have rediscovered skirts as the weather gets better - more airy than capris, more elegant than shorts. Of course there are some circumstances in which the skirt doesn't work so well - like when one is pretend-riding a motorcycle :)

After the BMW visit, one of my future classmates gave us a great walking tour of Munich. Today, we are in Athens - while we toured the Acropolis, we ran into Amit (my freshman dormmate, good friend, and future classmate to boot). The world really is quite small :)