Made it to Belgium - Finally

Greetings everyone. It has been a long and interesting day of travel. Amazing what a little snow can do to that much vaunted German efficiency. I reached my hotel for the next couple of nights at about 22.15. We left the hostel in Freiburg at 9.45 this morning and had an 11.50 train to Frankfurt. Well . . . turns out that as we reached Karlsruhe it was snowing, then as we kept going north it was snowing more. Moments before disembarking at Frankfurt the announcement says that those headed to Bruxelles (Brussels) should now stay on the train until Cologne as that is now where you will pick up your connection. Fortunately I can admit that my very bad German did me well in that respect or we would have been stuck in Frankfurt.
Another hour on the train and we reach Cologne, realizing we came into a different station than our connecting train and we have no more than 20 minutes to get to that train at the central train station. We get there and find out that our train isn't leaving, in fact - Zug fallt aus! (train is cancelled). It couldn't have been good even in German as they used an exclamation point. No problem, we just need a new plan now. From Cologne we take a train to Aachen, from Aachen we take a smaller train to Welkenraedt. From there we take a short connector to Verviers. It is only in Verviers that we readily identify that we are in Belgium. Truth be told, we entered the country just to the west south west of Aachen. To backtrack to the snow, there was maybe 2 to 3 inches of snow in Cologne, less than that in Frankfurt, by Aachen there was about 4 to 5 inches and in Verviers there was also about 5 inches of snow. The first train from Verviers to Bruxelles was cancelled, although the Belgians were not as helpful telling us this until the sign on the platform just turned off. Now we have nearly an hour in Verviers, hoping that the next train at 7.38pm doesn't cancel the same way the one at 6.38pm did. The very nice German we were talking to summed up the long day well - "if this train cancels I am taking the train back to Aachen and some true civilisation." He may not have been a huge fan of the Belgians.
Well the train does arrive and it is a slow local train up to Brussels. We reach Brussels Nord at right about 10pm after so many stops at small places with snow covered platforms that look as isolated as the shot of William Macy's character in Fargo looking out over the empty parking lot. Very few board and even fewer disembark at each of these stations. Ken and I are at two different hotels these first two nights as I actually had considered getting to a Champions' League match tonight or tomorrow night in Germany. As a result, when plans changed it meant that he walked down to his hotel and I took a taxi over to mine. It is a nice clean little cozy single room, with all of one outlet and very little lighting. I just don't look forward to packing up on Thursday to move to the other hotel, but hopefully there is more there as far as restaurants. There is nothing immediately in the vicinity so I am in my room eating Hobbits and drinking water. Ok I was eating Hobbits, they are all gone now, but they had a good crunch to them. (We got them from the hostel in Freiburg as part of our pack lunches and can hear nothing but Golem when we say the word hobbittizes.)

My first pack of Hobbits, taken through the Black Forest to Freiburg Altstadt, overlooking the Munster.

I know, whinge, whinge, whinge, or whine, whine, whine, either way it sounds so tough having to endure a long day of travel, when the original trip, including single connection was only to be five and a half hours in length. Let me offset my griping with a very wonderful highlight. In Cologne we were able to take a little bit to enjoy the splendor that is the Cathedral (but it was less than an hour of free time, so it was gawking from the outside). That alone would have been worthy of calling it a major plus to the day, but there is more. I was able to have a Kolsch bier on tap at the train station, which is still technically under the shadow of the cathedral. It was a wonderfully joyous thing, so fresh, so light, and so easily drinkable. I only had a 0.2 liter glass as we didn't have much time, but there is even another wonderful aspect, the free WC. The WC in the station was 1 euro per person. I spent 1.60 euro on the bier and both Ken and I were able to use the facilities. Thus by having a Kolsch in Cologne, under the shadow of the Cathedral, I saved us 0.40 euro by making sure I had a bier.

P.S. - I do want to write a bit about the Schwartzwald, but it will have to wait for tomorrow. I think a few more papers graded and a good night's sleep are my immediate future. Be well all!