Last week, on September 14-15th, our team (Kai and me) was invited to join Seak (@seaking on Twitter) and the Thalys crew to a special event in Paris, France. The Thalys is a highspeed train that connects Cologne and Paris with just a few stops along the way in Aachen, Liege and Brussels. Their goal for December ‘09 is a connection that just takes 3:15 from Cologne Station to Gare du Nord, Paris.
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Last tuesday I spent a rather long day in Berlin. Actually it wasn’t exactly Berlin which made the day long, it was – again – Cologne and its black hole called public transportation or short KVB. Coming out of the plane at Cologne airport – by the way: that pilot must have been mental – I went directly to the trainstation. Of course I didn’t really think about the train timing here, as they are just always late, but that’s the Deutsche Bahn and we’re kind of used to it. In the end the train came 10 minutes too late. The signs at the stations didn’t show this, even two Bahn workers who waited for the train looked suspicious at the dark tunnel. A quick look at the iPhone app that has (allegedly) every station in Germany showed the 10 minute late-ness.

If you ever come to Germany and own an iPhone get the Fahrplan app from the App Store. If you’re going to Berlin also get the Berlin Trip Planner. This one even searches for nearby stations. (more…)

Man, it’s really annoying to get sick during a great vacation that takes you to a really great city with awesome people. But these people around you make it so much better even though you aren’t able to do much.