ChooooChoooo!

Today was a big day.

Today I learned how to maneuver the trains. Yay! I had a lunch/shopping date with my new friend, Paula. Paula lives in downtown Stuttgart, so to get to her I had to take the train. Brian and I have both wanted to learn the train system, but we just hadn't gotten around to it. My little lunch/shopping date today provided the perfect excuse to finally figure out the zugs (trains in German).

After a 15 minute walk to our local train stop, Goldberg, I approached the automated ticket machine not knowing what kind of ticket I needed to purchase. I knew the stop I needed to get off the train at, but I did not know how the tickets were sold (by zone, by stop, by color of your socks...?). I was pleasantly surprised to see that the ticket machine had an English option. Whew! That made it much easier. All I had to do was type in where I wanted to go and it told me how much I owed. (Surprisingly, this was much easier than trying to figure out what type of ticket to buy for the San Diego trolley...go figure!) 4.40 Euro later, I was the proud owner of my very first German train ticket:

Last night I had checked the train timetables online so I knew that my train was at 1032. Since I was a few minutes early I basked in the welcome glow of the ever elusive sun.

At 1032 on the dot, my train pulled up and whisked me away to Stuttgart.



Paula and I had a great time shopping, chatting, and lunching. It's nice to have a fun girlfriend here! Once our legs were tired from walking and our wallets worn out from shopping, I hopped on my 1327 train and made it home right around 1400, completely satisfied with my German train adventure.