chugga chugga CHOO!

we took a train to copenhagen. here's the thing that americans don't realize about train travel, and i wish they would: even the WORST train journey is FAR BETTER than the best flight. and you get to see things as you go, and you can get up and walk around, and instead of plastic food, you can bring your own, and have this for breakfast: 

that's raisin bread. and when i say raisin bread, I mean it. there's more raisins than bread in this hunk, which weighs about 14 pounds. 

ah, the kindle. most trusty travel companion-- after ryan, of course! :)

that's belgium. don't worry, we're going to bruges next month, so there will be better belgium pictures. 

german starbucks, in Duisburg. I like how you get a real mug, not just a crappy paper cup. coffee out of a paper cup is okay, but tea with a tinge of cardboard is so gross. 

i like this clock. the second hand goes around smoothly enough, but as it completes the minute, the whole clock stopped so the minute hand could jump ahead. it was fun. 

this is how i travel... 

that's germany. we're also coming back, to st. inglebert, and berlin. so again, don't worry if you can't tell where this is. ryan LOVES taking pictures out the train window: 

JUSTIN! this is where your favorite cheese comes from!! 

so, of course we had to have a beer while in hamburg. I really tried to convince ryan to eat a hamburger in hamburg, but he wasn't hungry. maybe on the way back. Incidentally, we were at this bar in the train station, and watched the bartender assemble plates of food for the customers, and.... well, i've just never seen pea soup served with a side of mustard. 

i used to be a vegetarian, and still choose vegetarian food more often than not. so it won't surprise too many of you to hear this: German food terrifies me. all those sausages, and how do you know what's in them??? sure, they say it's pork-- but what part of the pig? in 3rd grade my teacher told us what was inside hot dogs and i've never eaten one since....

but a beer the size of my head? that i can get behind. also, i like pretzels. so here's hoping for the best. 

we missed our train to kobenhavn (ryan insists we use the correct, Danish spelling. and pronunciation, as much as we can), so we waited in hamburg for an hour or so, and then caught another, and were at our hotel by 10:30. perfect. see? even an imperfect train ride is better than flying.