Traveling from Brussels to Cologne
FOSDEM finished up a few days ago and the MySQL dev meeting after FOSDEM is now complete as well.
Brian, Monty and I woke up far before the dawn. Brian and Monty had a flight to catch and I was planning on going by train from Brussels to Hamburg.
Now, some hours later, I am on a train from Brussels to Cologne. As we pulled out of the Brussels main station, a light snow has started to lazily fall. The train rumbles up to full speed and the flakes turn into faint blurs outside the window.
The train is packed this day - every seat is full and every space for luggage is filled with bags, boxes, coats and packages. I was lucky enough to reserve a saloon in the train (a place at a table that you share with three other people) and to have space to type and work.
As we roll along, the train fills up with the smells of tired travelers. People jostle uncomfortably in their seats and try to catch a few hours of restless sleep. The woman across from me curiously eyes the tattoos on my fingers, while the man next to me works on learning english phrases from a book.
I watch the country pass. Everything is still decorated in the drabs of a dull and weak winter - brown leaves on the ground and bare trees reaching into the sky. We pass small towns filled with row houses of red brick faced with crumbling white plaster.
Things seem still under the low skies. The countryside is a patchwork of hamlets nestled in small valleys and little farms bordered with low crumbling walls. We pass a farm that rests in the crook of a small river. Next to the river, a team of crisply white farm ducks waddles through maneuvers like a group of bowlegged militia.
Inside the train, a small stir distracts me from the outside. A woman makes her way back down crowded aisle. Behind her the train seems to slowly come awake. Dozing travelers sit upright, while readers look up from their pages. As she comes nearer, a wave of heavy perfume stifles all other smells. The woman next to me fans under her nose with her hand. I breath through my mouth and can feel the heaviness in the air rolling about in my sinuses. Coughs both mock and real echo about the cabin and a low chuckle of laughter patters along with it.
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Posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2004 at 0:00
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