So, a bit of excitement today.

I get down to the train station early to buy that rumoured youth discount card.
I manage to purchase one (they’re significantly less slick than their German and Swiss counterparts), ending up with a ticket back to Paris in the bargain — meaning I need to buy another ticket during our 2.5-hour layover in Gare du Nord. (My parents are ticketted straight through.)

After making our way to Gare du Nord from Gard Saint Lazare, heavy packs and all through the Metro system ([1]), I queue up to buy my ticket. Thirty minutes later, I have a train ticket that leaves at the same time as my parents’ train, but arrives in Cologne an hour earlier. We all marvel at this, chalking it up to some magic inefficiency somewhere in the French rail system. We all go off our separate ways for lunch.

We regroup 15 minutes or so before the train is scheduled to leave. My parents’ seat reservations are in one car while mine are in another, so we split up to find our respective seats. At some point while searching for car 28 in a train where the numbers only go to 12, as I’m reading over my ticket for the dozen-th to see if maybe I’ve misread the car number, I realise why my train arrives an hour earlier: 3:50PM (the time now) is not 2:50PM, aka, when my train left. One mad dash in slippery conditions later, I’ve informed my level-headed father that he’s going to have to get to Cologne, feed the family and find the hotel — without the directions, since I don’t have enough time to get them out of my bag before his train leaves.

Dad says, OK.

I hop off, and their train goes in one direction while I go in the other, back to the ticket window. 45 minutes of standing in line later, I’m perched hawklike on the platform, waiting for my new train to Cologne; I am determined not to miss this one.

I arrive in Cologne 250 minutes later than planned. The guy at the information desk insists on speaking to me in English. He mangles the directions. After several S-Bahn lines and a good bit of walking, I find the place. My parents have checked into the hotel; this is good.

I knock on the door for what seems like forever before they come up behind me. They’ve been out at dinner, enjoying watching Germany’s victory in that day’s World Cup match. They’ve got beer in hand and have only returned to grab their daypacks so they can return to the market and stuff their packs full of booze and chocolate to take back to America. I grab my own rucksack, stockpile my own beer, then we all return to the hotel to swap stories about finding the place.

Despite the long day, I’ve no appetite. On the other hand, this is Germany, and if my time abroad has taught me anything, it’s that you don’t pass up beer in Germany. Thank you, beer.

[1] - When I first came to Paris, I spent a long time searching for the fabled Magenta line between Gare du Nord and Gare Saint Lazare. I finally found it on this trip; turns out it’s a lot easier to locate coming from Gare Saint Lazare than from Gare du Nord.