In the morning she took us in her car with our tightly packed suitcases and dropped us off at the station for our train journey back towards the north.
Swift train to Linz - earlier than we needed but that way we had a lift. A wait for 2 hours with a coffee in the sun, buying a picnic from the Spar in the station. Freight trains went through. Two passenger trains made purely beautiful musical noises in a perfect rising scale as they slowly moved away from another platform... mechanical squeezing, what might have been a grinding noise or brakes unlocking, or something, but there it was D E F G A B C .... wonderful!
On to the big train to Frankfurt - about six hours... We had a map for Austria and could trace our journey for part of the way. Across the aisle from us was a black woman, beautiful but confused. She and the conductor had various conversations about where she was to get off.... In the end the police came, interviewed her. She either did not understand them or could not answer for other reasons - no passport, no papers, nothing to say. Her voice was almost silent. The policewoman drew on blue rubber gloves and did a light search of the woman's plastic bag stuffed with - what? things. Eventually they took her off the train at Platting, otherwise spelled Plattling. She had been asking the conductor which stop that was.... but the police thought she wanted to get off at Munich - wrong train. Who knows? A mule? She seemed ill. I hope she is ok. It dragged me back to horrible thoughts: racism, Nazism (let me see your papers).... God knows what was in her mind. We were powerless, could do nothing.
We changed at Frankfurt - quite a different kind of station from its twin at Frankfurt Airport.... heavy and over-structured, it looks like, with tall skyscrapers faintly visible through the great demi-lune windows.
Thank goodness the delay on the first train did not make us miss our connection to Brussels. We waited for what seemed like ages on the platform before they let us in, to a near-identical train but this one was missing a couple of coaches so it was extremely tightly filled. The door behind us made a weird oomphetty-crunchetty noise every time it closed. The panel under our window had something metallic rattling inside of it, really loudly. It was first class, but not....
Outside there was a brief but spectacular sunset, then rain....
Brussels Station seemed to be utterly filled with people even though it was ten at night... Outside, the streets were full, there was a traffic jam. The station is surrounded by huge cobbles so pulling cases over it is awkward (and unnecessary). Our apartment is in a plain dark building and we wondered how to get in - but the owner's son came at that moment with another man carrying mops and buckets, and let us in.
The flat is hilarious... The contrast with Edith's immaculate and extremely comfortable house could not be more stark. They have installed a new kitchen and very shiny floor tiles, but the lighting is (not surprisingly) Mediterranean as they are Turkish. So we get small ornate central ceiling lights with not very bright bulbs. The rooms get darker when you switch these lights on. There is one bedside light but no plug in sight. Luckily Andrew has an extension cable with him.....
The sink in the bathroom is sloping slightly the wrong way so the water does not drain down the plug. The duvets are thin, and covered in a spectacular gunmetal-grey/red/purple shot silky fabric which catches on any rough skin. The tv only shows Portuguese programmes. It turns out that floor is lethally slippery after a shower, and the shower itself is perhaps 60 years old - it falls off the wall and is undirectable. So, our flat is cheap, and central, and we have it for 3 nights, but it would make a great location for a comic movie/farce.
We are in a foreign district, African shops, spherical beggar ladies outside on the pavement.... These beggars are everywhere - a new European phenomenon. Only in Linz has the problem been tackled - with emergency housing, help back to work, clothing etc. It's a hard problem all round.. I don't like seeing beggars, but my discomfort is nothing to theirs. I want them gone, for my pampered sake, but much much more for theirs. We saw no beggars in Linz. But outside the window here, there are two woman sitting.... You can see them.... Maybe they are just bored grannies. I don't know.
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