mrtnsnp, 2 months ago

@freyablekman vandaag Utrecht – München voor mij. We gaan het zien met de aansluiting.

freyablekman, 2 months ago

@mrtnsnp @freyablekman oei dan moet je langs Keulen. Altijd risicovol!

Veel reis plezier en ik hoop dat het goed gaat

freyablekman, 2 months ago

Especially for the Americans, the distance from Hamburg to Marseille is very close to the distance between Milwaukee and New Orleans.

Or, 1450 kilometres.

Yes I am aware we have great infrastructure in Europe (relatively) so let’s see how this goes…

freyablekman, 2 months ago

My first train is here!

Note that because it is a deutsche bahn @DB_Bahn train (=notoriously unreliable sadly until the German government starts properly investing in trains) I actually take an earlier train 2 hours early. My connection goes daily and I don’t want to miss it 😇

video/mp4

freyablekman, 2 months ago

So that means my total trip (if everything goes well) is 14 hours 30 minutes instead of 12 hours 30 minutes. But with a lower stress level so all ok

I’m now enjoying this great #Starbucks interpretation of my name. Greetings from Fraia in coach 12, seat 84 of the ICE73 Kiel-Zürich

freyablekman, 2 months ago

By the way one of the reasons I prefer #traintravel for work is because I actually can get some work done.

Today the planning is to do review work on multiple grant proposals that may and review a paper draft from my group. And #email. Loads of email.

But my working day starts at 9 so not yet. I am enjoying the views and relaxing 😎

freyablekman, 2 months ago

This gives me time to listen to some newscasts and do some reading. For example this recommendable storified review of #InvisibleWomen in @decorrespondent (a non fiction book that actually made me cry, read it 3 years ago, rightly recommended) https://open.decorrespondent.nl/15178/ik-zie-ik-zie-wat-jij-niet-ziet-hoe-de-onzichtbaarheid-van-de-vrouw-de-wereld-vormt/bb0cb406-2647-0e79-0b02-8dac5e0aff85/app-open (in🇳🇱!)

freyablekman, 2 months ago

And time for some #bahnbonus coffee (seat service ftw!🙌) because @DB_Bahn also has advantages, important to also remember #StayPositive

freyablekman, 2 months ago

Time to get to work and now it immediately gets clear what the @DB_Bahn lack of sustained funding means: for an unknown reason my coach does not have the seat electricity sockets turned on. But I’m a seasoned traveler so am now in the next coach. With seat power ⚡️. And my ☕️ and 🥐

freyablekman, 2 months ago

I work normally on travel days so that also means meetings! Zoom works also on a train, at least to listen

freyablekman, 2 months ago

Morning zoom meetings done, now on to some paper review. Train number 1 is 15 minutes late by now after 4 hours of travelling, and Deutsche Bahn is giving us #chocolate

freyablekman, 2 months ago

My Deutsche Bahn train is now so delayed that the Swiss won’t let it in (the Swiss railways nowadays only let German trains in if they are on time. Yes that’s a thing. The passengers then get dumped at the Swiss border and take local (so on time) transport https://www.iamexpat.ch/expat-info/swiss-expat-news/10-most-delayed-trains-switzerland-2022-revealed

vicgrinberg, 2 months ago

@freyablekman ugh ...

freyablekman, 2 months ago

@vicgrinberg @freyablekman all good. See next post

vicgrinberg, 2 months ago

@freyablekman but it's still pretty "ugh" for me - the Germany to Switzerland connection was something I was planning to use often; I knew they stopped showing the German ICEs on Swiss schedule, I did not know about being dumped (don't blame them, but still ugh).

freyablekman, 2 months ago

This time I’m not going to Switzerland though. And I still have plenty of time to change to my French second train even with the 25+ minute delay

freyablekman, 2 months ago

Six and a half hours in, I’m sitting in the sun, working and waiting for my train (even with the delay I have a 80 minute buffer which is why I took an earlier train on the German side). And I’m now in Baden-Württemberg, one of the two Brezel strongholds in Germany.

So 🥨 time!

vicgrinberg, 2 months ago

@freyablekman I tend to do the same 😊

knud, 2 months ago

@freyablekman

I had to chase a connection to Spain using different TGVs over ~5h due to a delayed ICE. So yes, this is not only wise but essential.

freyablekman, 2 months ago

@knud @freyablekman exactly

grb090423, 2 months ago

@freyablekman @knud

Wishing you good travels 👍

WiseWoman, 2 months ago

@freyablekman
Good luck! No strikes planned today. As long as you have water, food, and something to read you should be fine!

knud, 2 months ago

@WiseWoman @freyablekman

I went to NL last week. The delay due to strike fallouts Friday was less severe than my delays without strikes but decaying infrastructure on Wednesday.

freyablekman, 2 months ago

@knud @WiseWoman @freyablekman agreed. The sustained underfunding of this infrastructure (and its employees) is more of a nuisance than people striking to try to fix one of those. I plan around strikes.