I spent last summer in Germany in a small town in the northern part of the country. In this town called Muenster, and throughout the rest of my travels in Eastern Europe, I experienced so many culture shocks I don't think a single blog post would be sufficient to describe them all. Also, most were rather banal or mundane. However some cases were epic tales worthy of a retelling. This is but one of them.
At the end of the first two weeks of intensive German lessons, we were allowed to travel around. I planned to meet some friends in Munich and then travel eastwards into the Czech Republic. A couple of difficulties presented themselves however.
1. My other friends were headed westwards into France so I was travelling alone for this leg of the journey
2. The journey to Munich from Muenster was a grueling 8 hour train ride
3. The only train ticket available was through the night
Nevertheless I figured worse things had already happened to me in Europe up to this point (Come see me for the salacious details.) and this might be tamer than those.
The compartment I boarded was occupied by 2 Caribbean men and a German girl. The men were playing their music on their cellphones but used the speakers. German railways require silence in all seating compartments and the German girl was most definitely annoyed. She immediately told the men to turn off their radios and the men complied. One of them winked at me and asked if all German women were alike. I held my laughter in check of course. And then explained to them that the carriage was supposed to be silent. The men nodded and then apologised to the woman and called her over to their seats asking if she wanted to listen to a bit of their m
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