En train

So it's goodbye to Blighty, with its grey skies and yellow fields, and off on the trains again: Eurostar under the Channel to Brussels, then change of trains to Cologne, where I went last year on the river cruiser, and finally today to Berlin, where I've never been before.

Brussels is new to me too, but all we're seeing of it is the big and busy railway station, where an Air France lady took the trouble to come out of her office and tell me to keep better watch over my bags, which I had turned away from to read the paper. Bit unnerving, though kind of her.

Trains are such a novelty to me, like most New Zealanders, that I'm always disproportionately impressed by how people whisk through these large and confusing places, taking the whole system completely for granted. And it all works so well! On time! Comfortable! Free wifi! An efficient railway network is the mark of a civilised society, I reckon.