Tuesday, 9th October 2001.
Going to the garden to eat

I returned to Koln in multilingual style, and then boarded a regional train for Worms (changing trains at Mainz, in case you were wondering). I fell asleep, and woke up with a line of dribble on my shirt and a bespectacled kid staring at me.

The train followed the Rhine. Barges and boats cruised on the river, and in the background castles sat on the hillcrests and vineyards cut into the hillsides. The route to Worms wound through a chain of picturesque towns.

I found the Jugendherberge by mistake. The bloke on reception spoke English like I speak German - tenses and prepositions all over the place.

The afternoon and evening were spent poking about the town, and I returned to my room to find a middle-aged German couple there. They thought they had the room to themselves, and if I knew how to be sarcastic in German then I would've pointed out my posessions spread over one of the bunks. We then had a long chat, although I don't think that they were having the same conversation as me.