Or The lady with the suitcase (when I only travel with my backpack!)
WILD WANDERER – « Ich liebe Berlin » V2.6
I had planned to call this post “My worst ride on the train”. No room for interpretation. But I remembered the name one of the ticket inspector gave me and I found it nicer. Then I realized it didn’t quite match my other berliner titles and I found it clearer. In the end, this post has 3 titles, thousands of detours (as much as twists and turns), too many useless brackets and quote marks, not enough vital digressions. A sort of raw porridge of what moved me for 24 hours. And I am spoiling the end in the process! It is starting as well as my ride!
And despite my doomed title, I will begin like everything has ended well.
Because everything had started so well. No sarcasm this time.
I ride a train to go home from Berlin and I am delighted. I love to ride a train. Write on my notebook or my laptop. Read my book. Or just gazing at the landscapes flowing in my window.
I am even glader since all my travels from or to Berlin has been on a bus for lack of money. But for this return, I wanted my train ride.
I took good care of my departure. I strolled along one of my favorite paths in the city. Along the Spree. Sheltered by falling wisterias and shedding weeping willows. In order to meet my favorite paint: Casper David Friedrich [his paints were exhibited elsewhere for my last stay], which actually made me realize he kinda looked like my ex lover (without the sideburns). Then, I arrived at Hauptbanhnhof one hour early to get my last durüm in one of the best Imbiss of Berlin (gladly tasted the last time). And, in the end, I am on the quay at 14.27, ready to embark 10 min before the train leaves. I am getting better at this, I don’t miss any transportation now.
Everything had started so well.
Then everything has started to go wrong step by step.
Little details and yet…
I forgot to do my “comfort check-in” for the first stretch of my ride. In Germany, on some lines, you book your ticket but not your seat (like on a plane), you have to do it 48 hours before your journey (I did get a reminder for that but it was written in German and except for « gesund » and « danke schön », my German is still so weak, I didn’t understand and didn’t try to). I then didn’t hade a booked seat. You then have to find THE free seat (we must have been only 5 people on the train not to have got the “cvmfort booking”). In order to find “your” free seat, you have to check the screen on the seats: if dark, it’s yours (the nice ticket inspector who named me “the lady with the suitcase” gave me that information). In the end, I did get a seat. Window side, please.
And at that moment, I didn’t even think it might one of those Universe’s red flags, I just laughed at myself.
Settled at my window, I then could start, 45 min after departure, my loved train habits. Except I had some logistical plans to make for my return and I think it started to get derailed (no jokes). I was full of miscommunication causing a lot of inner life crisis.
Thankfully, German landscapes were stunning in my windows. My notebook welcame a few words. None did my computer.
Alas, inner life crisis are never-endin, especially when you are alone on a train thinking about everything that whent wrong in your heart!
In hindsight, I felt behind my departure. I was sad to leave Berlin, because I am always sad to leave a place. And my non-booked seat + my logistical plans prevented me from taking care of my longing, to feel it truly. I was watching myself, the train, my journey. When I was finally able to get back into my body, my itinerary utterly got off rail!
I was ready for the upcoming crisis: my train was delayed (apparently even Germans can have such problems!), and I was about to miss my connection in Mannheim.
And, plot twist, if I missed my connection to Paris, I missed the one to Tolouse (and that one was not part of my Deutsch Bahn package to bring me home). My challenge to fit a 24hours journey in 18 was a bit compromised indeed!
Thankfully, Deutsch Bahn is nice after such a massive fuck up: you can take any train any day with so extra fees to your destination (so, in this situation to Paris and not Toulouse)…
It is 1.30 am now and I am writing in the train between Bern and Lausanne, in which I just got a Swiss travel fine! Yeah! Apparently, Swiss don’t care about German delays and the ticket between Berlin and Paris doen’t work between Bern and Lausanne!
I’ll then pruchase my ticket between Lausanne and Geneva so I don’t get a second fine, then between Geneva and Lyon so I don’t get a third fine. Once I am in France, I might push my luke with the SCNF, but I am afraid I am gonna have to sell 3 kidneys after this journey (post travel update: I didn’t risk it, I took a ticket for ALL my rides!).
In the end, I am comfortably seated, window side, to look my sleepless night in invisible Swiss landscapes in my window.
I have spent the last 7 hours in hell. In between life crisis and train delays. But it seems sarcasm is kicking in, and I could almost write: “at least, it creates funny stories for when I’ll be home”. Except it wouldn’t be nice for the past version of me, 4 hours ago, when I burst into tears in a German train bathroom riding Swiss rails because I jjust desperately wanted to be home.
Especially when the best is up to come… 2 hours and 30 minutes in the waiting. In a train station. Closed for the night. At least 5 connexions ahead + the one I have already succeeded. Thankfully, my last traveling hour will be with my sister to get over this hell of a train ride!
Then, yes, it is the worst journey home I have ever experienced! Only surrounded by night owls in Lausanne train station. I love train rides so much, but inconditionnal love is being challenged tonight! Drained is not a poetic word anymore. I am fully drained. From my sense of humour. My sleep. My dough.
I have never felt so lonely. In this sleepless night.
Nothing exists but this night. Abandoned. In the unknown of Europe. Thinking about all my bad decisions. Tonight. And before.
It seemed appropriate: 3 am in a train station to reflect on my life!
I spare you – and it will be the only time – my big written vomit to sum it up in a few sentences. Here and now, I have never felt so powerless. I have surrendered. And it scares me. I am frightening when I give in. When I accept “I can’t do anything about it” but it doesn’t quite bring me peace in my heart. I am still frustrated, disappointed and sorry… Even if my life is not as dissolving as before, 3 am in a train station makes it harder to not get confused between this delay and everything that goes wrong in my life.
If my sarcasm was really back, I would say: since I am stuck in a station, I could at least throw myself under a train. But it would be a bit alarming considering my actual state.
Instead, I’ll stop here my complains, this biased reflection, to go back to my sweeter Berliner memories.
I am sure I have made an out as grand as my first Berlineer entrance! Although I keep saying: Ich liebe Berlin immer noch und [as would say Marlene (Dietriech) ] ich hab’noch einen koffen in Berlin** [ since, after all, I am the lady with the suitcase! ].
For sure I still love Berlin: as I add this up – 5 hours, 2 trains and 2 hours of sleep later -, I just came by Lyon train station (with a valid ticket which costed me my liver) where screens offensively caught me: “your new destination? Germany!”. I was not even disgusted nor discouraged! And it feels comforting, to thionk this hell of journey home doesn’t turn me completely off germany or travel… it seems unconditional love still has a bright future! And without those train detours, I wouldn’t have visited Switzerland for the first time, I wouldn’t have payed snacks in Swiss Francs, I wouldn’t have contested my first Swiss fine. This was, after all, also an adventure!
Along those lines I keep adding on my ride between Narbonne and Carcassonne – the 7th train since I left Berlin! -, I just heard a tronado swept away Berlin minutes after I departed!!! I suddenly put my hell of a journey home into perspective: choosing between a tornado and a neverending train, I’d rather take the train!
It is always easier to reflect in daylight and one hour away from home! From here, my Swiss night anxieties feel so far away… Yet, I have never been so upset on my way home.
And now that I have never been closer to home, I can tell: it was time for me to leave Berlin, I was ready to go home; and I probably needed all those obstacles to understand how much…
Sometimes, it is not about rushing, it is about leaving in time!
Justine T.Annezo – from Sept, 4th to Sept, 5th 2026, from Berlin to Toulouse – GTM+2
* I still love Berlin and I still have a suitcase there.
