Die Bahn, Die Bahn

Bill mentions on his blog how he's experienced most of the Deutsche Bahn experience in the last few months (he commutes about two hours one way on the train daily). What he fails to mention, is the truly inspiring experience we had last night on the train.

I told him that I'd like to catch the 7pm-ish train back to Frankfurt because even though the entire trip normally takes two hours, for some reason on Sunday evenings, it takes four to five hours. And since he's got to get up early, I didn't want to get in at midnight or 1am. So, we did it. Got on the train, no problems. Only, there's a spot on the track between his house and Mannheim where they're working on the track. No trains can go over it at all. We have to get off one big town before Mannheim, get on a bus, and go to Mannheim there. No problem, it just adds a half hour to an hour to the trip. We finally get on the train at Mannheim (having run to make the connection or we'd have to wait another hour for the next train!). The only problem with this train is the VERY loud, VERY upset Romanian woman with child yelling at her boyfriend/husband for the ENTIRE hour, hour and a half. He did something to piss her off and she was giving him what for the entire time. Insulting his age (he was about 10 years older than her), his race (he was black), and the fact that he wouldn't talk back to her. She just wouldn't stop! Some kids behind us kept laughing at her which probably just inflamed the situation. The conductor asked, then YELLED at her to be quiet or get off the train three times. I thought for sure we'd have Police people waiting for them at every stop, but they never appearred. Finally, at the end he DID talk back to her (a lot quieter than she was talking) and what does she say?? SHUT UP! My freeaking gawd. No wonder some men hate women! I finally had to mutter (very loudly) "THEN SHUT THE F*** UP!!" after she said something about how everybody was watching and listening to them. She actually did shut up for about a minute after that. Posted by Jinglelady at September 29, 2003 09:15 PM | Previous Blog | TrackBack