Trains 2 and 3

It's another day, early morning in Ottawa, early afternoon in Bavaria; we are in another world now. The sun came out here soon after we arrived (although we had descended through low grey cloud and landed on a wet runway) presenting us with a pleasant spring day. I don't suppose the Germans call it spring yet, but after all the snow we had yesterday, it feels like spring to me.

The seven hour Lufthansa flight was punctual and fairly painless, although Chris had a very large man sitting in front of him who reclined his chair right back, hardly leaving room for Chris to move, the chair-back only a hand's breadth from his nose. We'd chosen wider than usual, premier economy seats for this one, with more leg room, and the service on board was not bad, juice served in glass tumblers rather than plastic ones, for example, and fresh fruit with slices of cheese, salami and ham for breakfast at 2 a.m. (EST). I'd struggle to eat anything at that hour. A novelty we both appreciated was the option for in-flight entertainment on our individual screens which allows one to see the display from the video cameras positioned on the nose, on the tail and underneath the fuselage of the aircraft, showing the view straight down, or straight ahead, or a bird's eye view of the front half of the plane as it trundles along the taxiways on the ground or flies through the air. Chris took this photo of the screen display from the tail camera as we docked at our gate after landing. Impressive, isn't it?

The long walk through a couple of terminal buildings, with a short train shuttle and series of escalators between them, woke us up, and we had plenty of time to catch our onward trains. Straight through passport control with no waiting, since we can still use our British-European passports with the electronic chip at the automatic gates on this side of the Atlantic, wonderful, but I don't know whether it will still be as easy after Brexit (happening at the end of next week, to our chagrin---my daughter posted a personal lament on Facebook yesterday, but that's by the way).

The directions to the S-Bahn were clearly marked with a green S, bringing us through the impressive courtyard at the entrance to the airport which buzzes with Christmas market stalls in December but is quieter now. The only stressful moment was when, with 5 minutes left to get onto the train, we couldn't get our credit cards to work in the ticket dispensers. Fortunately I'd acquired a fresh supply of Euros and cash is accepted in those old machines. They spew out a clatter of change in 2 euro coins.

Train No. 2 on this trip was the S1 from MUC into the city, taking us to the Hauptbahnhof directly, a 45 minute journey during which we spotted the hotel where we'll be staying later this week, at Unterschleißheim. Yes, there is an Oberschleißheim as well. We rode through that station too.

At the bustling Hauptbahnhof we still had well over an hour to wait, so bought a brunch at one of the station's "Rischart" fast food outlets, one we remember being at the last time we were here, where the tables are so tall, especially for someone as short as I am, that you have to stand up to use one, or grab a bar stool if you can or lean against a padded ledge. Chris' choice of eating place, not mine. My lunch was a Roggenbrot sandwich, so full of feta cheese and lumps of avocado and tomato paste I could hardly finish half of it. I made a mistake when ordering my coffee too. I asked for it mit Sahne and the girl, a newcomer to Germany to judge by her accent, served it black with a large dollop of Schlagsahne, whipped cream. I shan't do that again.

I have written this post on train No. 3, the Intercity Express to Berlin, although we're not going anything like that far. We have been through Augsburg, Bertolt Brecht's place of origin, and shall get off at the next stop, Ulm. Again, a comfortable ride, smooth and punctual, with a table to type on, so that we didn't accidentally fall asleep in transit. We had risked not reserving seats on this train and didn't need to worry.

We reached Ulm and spent the rest of the day walking round it.