And still travelling by train

Travelling with Deutsche Bahn can be exhausting – I'll just say delays! – but it's always an experience nonetheless. And practical too: it's relatively easy to traverse all of Germany; I'm sure every major city is connected to the extensive network, as are the most important airports. From Plochingen in Baden-Württemberg to Frankfurt Airport takes me roughly two hours; I travel comfortably and environmentally responsibly. Besides, I've confirmed again that whoever travels always meets people with interesting stories – stories that you often only learn a fraction of. It's fun to wonder how these stories began and how they'll continue. On said train journey to the airport, I made the acquaintance of a young woman from Costa Rica. She's an au pair in Germany, here for the first time ever and now travelling to get to know the country. There's little information to imagine who you're dealing with here, but enough to spark my imagination. Does she like Germany? What will she experience on her travels? And besides, Costa Rica – how exciting! But of course I also make acquaintance with rather unpleasant travellers.
This time I got to marvel again at how unfriendly people can be – and how terribly pedantic. A couple had reserved seats, but an older gentleman was sitting in them. With a loud and annoyed voice, the man of the couple sent the older gentleman away; his exact words: "… then just find yourself something else. We're sitting here. These are our seats!" Of course, one could now argue that the couple was in the right, after all they had reserved and paid. But that's not what I'm getting at. Rather, I wonder how it's possible that we apparently forgot how to treat other people with respect and courtesy, regardless of whether we're in the right or not. Is it really that difficult? Another incident on my train journey then held up a mirror to me and showed that I'm just as snobbish and uptight as I just accused the couple of being. A little boy had, because he'd trapped his hand, screamed the carriage down for a few minutes. My reaction: furrowed brow, head shaking, pulling out headphones and blocking out as much background noise as possible. Best of all, put on a "don't-mess-with-me-or-talk-to-me" look and I had my peace. Later, the boy – calm again and pain-free – waved at me, very sweet.
I promptly gave myself a mental slap and resolved not to
be so snobbish anymore. Because, hello – that's a child! What did I expect?
Of course, children sometimes make noise. By the way, Deutsche Bahn changed their well-known
phrase "Thank you for travelling with Deutsche Bahn" to "Thank you for choosing
Deutsche Bahn". So whoever doesn't fancy other people should perhaps give up train travel and choose another means of transport, since you inevitably encounter your own species here. I won't do that, though. Because
even if there's always something that makes me roll my eyes, wrinkle my nose
or furrow my brow, train travel is always fun for me. Whether it's an encounter that gets stored in my catalogue of interesting stories
like this time the little boy and the au pair girl, or simply the fact that I can read my newspaper here – which I can't do in a car or
bus because I get queasy quickly – I take something away from every train journey.
And if we're honest, people aren't that bad – just human.