8. August - The long road

Three carloads became six boxes, themselves reduced to two bags of castoffs, two suitcases, and one shelf of leftovers. Two suitcases (a backpack, a traditional case), each meeting the airline weight requirement, containing a life: all one needs to survive and thrive for a year in temperate climes. Summer wear, winter wear, hats, gloves, scarves, underwear, batteries, CDs, books, papers, laptop, addresses, a violin, music for said violin, a raincoat, an umbrella, shoes, sandles, a business suit, a couple of sweaters, running clothes, hiking boots, sweat pants, a hat, sunglasses…[ ]…backup sunglasses, MP3 player. Everything not brought must be bought, convenience weighed against cost weighed against inconvenience.

Airports have trolleys, have baggage checks and restrictions. Train stations have, if one is lucky, escalators. One backpack, one 60 lb suitcase, one violin, and one laptop bag are, in hindsight, quite a bit of baggage for one person to manage alone on a train journey.

It helps to be a girl, and a young one. People want to be helpful, they think I can’t manage alone. They’d be wrong; somehow or another I could do it, even if I had to carry it all myself. But it sure is a helluva lot easier if someone helps, and even then it is still a ton to lug around.

The trip from Berlin up north requires changing stations at the stylish and fancy Hauptbahnhof in Berlin, recently completed in time for the World Cup and several dozen meters shorter than intended, a change in Hamburg, and would also usually end in a 45 minute bus ride which my guest family is sparing me. Four and a half hours total, with “layover” in HH.

But why’d I have to pack so #@%@# much stuff?