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<blockquote data-quote="BillB" data-source="post: 1214892" data-attributes="member: 9985"><p>Jackie and I slept soundly that night and in the morning we only had to pack our toilet accessories, lock our bags and we were ready for the journey home as soon as we had finished breakfast.</p><p></p><p>We wheeled our bags up to the gangway and stacked them with the other bags that were going to Passau railway station. When our bus arrived I wheeled them to the luggage compartment, then gave a couple of our companions a hand with theirs. As I stood waiting for the driver to load them I received a buffeting in the legs, hard enough to make me stagger. I turned round and saw, to my disbelief that it was His Ghastliness, thinking of no one but himself, as usual, trying to jump the queue. I bit my tongue and satisfied myself with giving him a furious glare.</p><p></p><p>At the railway station we had a short wait for our train to Frankfurt. Continental trains have a step which is higher than the platform so there is a step up for passengers which is even more difficult if you have luggage. Jackie and I have worked out a system for loading our cases which involves her climbing aboard first and I then pass up the first case to her which she only has to push on its wheels behind her. I can then almost immediately pass up the next one, following it myself with our little carry on bag thus leaving the doorway clear for the following passenger in a fairly quick manner. Once on board I only have to stack our cases in the area created for them and we are free to go and find our seat. This time Jackie climbed aboard and as I prepared to pass up the first case I was hit quite violently in the legs. When I turned it was, of course, the Ghastly One, pushing his suitcase in front of him and using it as a bulldozer to push everyone out of the way. “What do you think you’re doing?” I snarled at him. “Getting on the train,” he answered. I arranged my wrinkles as menacingly as I could. “Well, wait your turn,” I snarled at him. “And don’t hit me again with that suitcase.” He looked dumbfounded. He seemed to believe that his behaviour was totally normal. I turned around and continued passing up our cases. I didn’t realise how much I could dislike someone. Everybody else in our group were pleasant, sociable and considerate. I resolved to avoid him as much as possible between then and our heading for home.</p><p></p><p>On the train we discovered that an elderly German couple were occupying our seats. I pointed out that we had tickets for those seats. She insisted that they had reserved them. Our tour manager saw what was happening and went to get the ticket inspector. When the inspector examined their tickets it became clear that they had reserved those seats for only the first part of their journey. At Passau they should have vacated them. He told them they had to move. And they did - very grudgingly. We shared the 4-seat berth with another couple from our trip with whom we had chatted frequently, had pre-dinner drinks with in the bar and generally had found to be very pleasant company. Thus the rest of the journey to Frankfurt passed amiably.</p><p></p><p>We had a wait of around 30 minutes when we changed trains in Frankfurt so I took the chance to leave the station building and take a look at the adjoining streets to see if there had been any big changes since the period when we had lived only about 30 miles away. Directly opposite was Kaiserstrasse, notorious in those days as the centre of the red light district.</p><p></p><p>As time was limited I couldn’t walk too far and I soon headed back to our platform. There were no further problems with our seats and the journey to Cologne passed pleasantly enough. At Cologne we found our hotel was close to the main station and only a short walk to Cologne Cathedral. Once we had checked in several of those in our group decided that they would drop their cases in their rooms and then take a walk to see it. After travelling all day with occasional suitcase humping interludes I was feeling quite tired and in any case I had seen the cathedral a couple of times in the past. Jackie and I put our feet up and had a quiet read for a while, then we freshened up and went down to the bar for a drink before dinner.</p><p></p><p>We were the only people in there for a while, then a couple from our group came in and joined us, then another, then another. Before long we had become a rather talkative group who filled about a quarter of the bar area.</p><p></p><p>When we decided it was time eat we moved up to the restaurant on the 1st floor. We were in the Hotel Maritim and I was surprised how big the mezzanine area was. The hotel was clearly newly constructed and I wondered how they had managed to find such a large plot in the centre of a bustling city like Cologne. We lingered over dinner and coffee, both excellent, before making our way back to our room and falling into bed.</p><p></p><p>We shared our breakfast table with another couple next morning before gathering in the lobby for the bus to the station. Our journey from Cologne to Brussels went smoothly and fairly quickly. After we all left the train, we said goodbye to our fellow travellers (with one exception, naturally). We waved them off as they vanished into the Eurostar section and then went to find out the next train to Luxembourg. To our pleasant surprise there was one leaving in 9 minutes so we hared off to the correct platform and climbed aboard the train when it arrived. The journey to Luxembourg was a bit of a drag as it stopped at every little village we came to.</p><p></p><p>As we drew near our destination I called our son and let him know what time the train would be arriving. Great lad that he is, he was there to meet us, load our cases into his car and drive us home.</p><p></p><p>After checking the house to see that no disasters had occurred while we were away, we went out to a local Italian restaurant for a meal.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BillB, post: 1214892, member: 9985"] Jackie and I slept soundly that night and in the morning we only had to pack our toilet accessories, lock our bags and we were ready for the journey home as soon as we had finished breakfast. We wheeled our bags up to the gangway and stacked them with the other bags that were going to Passau railway station. When our bus arrived I wheeled them to the luggage compartment, then gave a couple of our companions a hand with theirs. As I stood waiting for the driver to load them I received a buffeting in the legs, hard enough to make me stagger. I turned round and saw, to my disbelief that it was His Ghastliness, thinking of no one but himself, as usual, trying to jump the queue. I bit my tongue and satisfied myself with giving him a furious glare. At the railway station we had a short wait for our train to Frankfurt. Continental trains have a step which is higher than the platform so there is a step up for passengers which is even more difficult if you have luggage. Jackie and I have worked out a system for loading our cases which involves her climbing aboard first and I then pass up the first case to her which she only has to push on its wheels behind her. I can then almost immediately pass up the next one, following it myself with our little carry on bag thus leaving the doorway clear for the following passenger in a fairly quick manner. Once on board I only have to stack our cases in the area created for them and we are free to go and find our seat. This time Jackie climbed aboard and as I prepared to pass up the first case I was hit quite violently in the legs. When I turned it was, of course, the Ghastly One, pushing his suitcase in front of him and using it as a bulldozer to push everyone out of the way. “What do you think you’re doing?” I snarled at him. “Getting on the train,” he answered. I arranged my wrinkles as menacingly as I could. “Well, wait your turn,” I snarled at him. “And don’t hit me again with that suitcase.” He looked dumbfounded. He seemed to believe that his behaviour was totally normal. I turned around and continued passing up our cases. I didn’t realise how much I could dislike someone. Everybody else in our group were pleasant, sociable and considerate. I resolved to avoid him as much as possible between then and our heading for home. On the train we discovered that an elderly German couple were occupying our seats. I pointed out that we had tickets for those seats. She insisted that they had reserved them. Our tour manager saw what was happening and went to get the ticket inspector. When the inspector examined their tickets it became clear that they had reserved those seats for only the first part of their journey. At Passau they should have vacated them. He told them they had to move. And they did - very grudgingly. We shared the 4-seat berth with another couple from our trip with whom we had chatted frequently, had pre-dinner drinks with in the bar and generally had found to be very pleasant company. Thus the rest of the journey to Frankfurt passed amiably. We had a wait of around 30 minutes when we changed trains in Frankfurt so I took the chance to leave the station building and take a look at the adjoining streets to see if there had been any big changes since the period when we had lived only about 30 miles away. Directly opposite was Kaiserstrasse, notorious in those days as the centre of the red light district. As time was limited I couldn’t walk too far and I soon headed back to our platform. There were no further problems with our seats and the journey to Cologne passed pleasantly enough. At Cologne we found our hotel was close to the main station and only a short walk to Cologne Cathedral. Once we had checked in several of those in our group decided that they would drop their cases in their rooms and then take a walk to see it. After travelling all day with occasional suitcase humping interludes I was feeling quite tired and in any case I had seen the cathedral a couple of times in the past. Jackie and I put our feet up and had a quiet read for a while, then we freshened up and went down to the bar for a drink before dinner. We were the only people in there for a while, then a couple from our group came in and joined us, then another, then another. Before long we had become a rather talkative group who filled about a quarter of the bar area. When we decided it was time eat we moved up to the restaurant on the 1st floor. We were in the Hotel Maritim and I was surprised how big the mezzanine area was. The hotel was clearly newly constructed and I wondered how they had managed to find such a large plot in the centre of a bustling city like Cologne. We lingered over dinner and coffee, both excellent, before making our way back to our room and falling into bed. We shared our breakfast table with another couple next morning before gathering in the lobby for the bus to the station. Our journey from Cologne to Brussels went smoothly and fairly quickly. After we all left the train, we said goodbye to our fellow travellers (with one exception, naturally). We waved them off as they vanished into the Eurostar section and then went to find out the next train to Luxembourg. To our pleasant surprise there was one leaving in 9 minutes so we hared off to the correct platform and climbed aboard the train when it arrived. The journey to Luxembourg was a bit of a drag as it stopped at every little village we came to. As we drew near our destination I called our son and let him know what time the train would be arriving. Great lad that he is, he was there to meet us, load our cases into his car and drive us home. After checking the house to see that no disasters had occurred while we were away, we went out to a local Italian restaurant for a meal. [/QUOTE]
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