(Ed Note: written 14.Feb, 2014).
The luge seems to be The Sport for Germany this Winter Olympics. Another gold medal yesterday (Thursday 13th Feb) allowed me to visit another part of the country, gratis.
Well, almost. If my German were better I would have realized that the last phrase of the “where is the GoldBahnKart good” didn’t mean something like “you can’t bring extra traffic” but rather “other railway traffic”, and I would have been doing it gratis. But seeing as how I was already on the Regional Express when the conductor kindly explained that I would have to pay for the ticket from Eichenburg to Halle, I couldn’t just jump off the train. So I bought the ticket. I did get 25% off, though, which was nice. On the way back, I planned the trip via ICE/IC – and in a humorous twist of fate, it is going to take me an hour longer to get home. Unfortunately, I did not save the trip via IC/ICE onto my phone, so I am not really sure what connection to take after Hannover: Do I try to get home from Göttingen? Or do I overshoot and go to Kassel Wilhemshöhe? Well, I’m going to hope that I can make a reasonable connection via Göttingen and exit stage – whichever it is in Fahrtrichting. I may be getting home at midnight. After that, well I think I will be sleeping late tomorrow.
Unless, of course, another Gold was won today and I am not yet aware of the fact. In that case, I might do something crazy and take the ICE to Freiberg in the Black Forest. Four hours there and back, so I would have to leave pretty early in the day. In some respects I hope today was not another gold medal day, b/c I feel obliged to make use of this gold card! I had several opportunities to do so earlier, but between work and this cold, I did not take them — and I feel a bit guilty!
But back to Halle…
In the meantime, I took the time to walk down Leipzigerstraße, following the signs to “Händelhaus”. I am sure I walked past the place, but never saw “IT”. Went back the way I came after taking some pictures and buying some cheap candy to suck on to try to stave off the coughing, found the same sign, followed it back.. and apparently the place was 150 m from yet another sign. No clue where it was. In any event the sun was setting, the architecture from this amazing city (home to the genius of Julius Kuhn and GF Händel, among others) becoming well lit by a close-to-full moon, and it was time to make my way back to the train station. I had given myself two hours to explore, intending to saunter slowly down the Leipzigstrasse and back, but walked too quickly.
A man playing the cello caught my intention, and I regret not stopping to listen to him for a few minutes. Had I known that the street was really not that long, I would have taken the time. His playing was quite lovely. A little further down a young man played guitar and sang modern songs of love. Me without a euro coin — nothing really attracted my attention as far as spending money, but I would have liked to have shown my appreciation for these musicians. 
Many trams came together halfway down my meanderings, where a farmers market with fish and vegetables and even an herb and tea vendor with kaffir lime leaves — if I had had a few euros in my pocket, I would have purchased those; they are so needed in Tom Ka Gai and Tom Yum Goon soup and right now I am fresh out (or even dried out).
Back at the train station I noticed a sign for the Martin Luther Institute or some-such; took a picture for the benefit of Slideman. 
Made the 1907 train to Hannover. We are just coming in to Magdeburg now, which is just shy of an hour of travel. It is 1959; we are expected in to Hannover at 2123; the Göttingen train leaves at 2137 and arrives at 2212. I might have to wait until 23 something or other to get back to Witzenhausen; I sure hope that Witz train is a good connection. After looking at the schedule it seems that I must be connecting at Göttingen, b/c it is about 20 minutes to Witz from there, and the schedule had me getting to Witz about 2238. The Kassel train gets in at 2233, so that would be impossible to get to Witz in five minutes Although further contemplation makes me wonder if the system is merely laughing at me, since it also seems impossible to get to Witz from Göttingen if the train arrives into Göttingen at 2212! We will see!
Ugh! we have just left Magdeburg, and the train is now heading in the other direction! I was sitting in the direction of travel. Now I am sitting in the direction of non travel. I hate that. Although it makes me feel so much better to see that the two couples at tables a couple of rows ahead of me just switched so that folks can face the direction of travel (-: Unfortunately the train was late coming into Hannover, and by the time we reached the station, I had run out of gummi bears to keep from coughing and made the top of my mouth raw from sucking on cheap hard candies and was really tired of sneezing. I have no idea where this germ came from, but I will forever refer to it as the “train wreck virus”.
There are few things so frustrating as running up to a platform at the time of departure only to have the train doors locked and the engineer on the platform say “zu spät”. Some of those things include the info desk telling someone that the only other train for will be at 2227, and that it will get into Göttingen too late to get to Witzenhausen tonight. I was getting cranky, as I was feeling more ill by the moment and had run out of dry tissues. Ick.
The upside to that 2227 train is that I met some very nice people. The train was going to Vienna OR Nuremberg. The first car was going to Nuremberg, with its first stop at Göttingen. The rest of the train would split off and head to Vienna. It was actually on the “wrong” platform, as the overnight to Paris was also running late and was on the same track, so the woman next to me jumped on the train, just as it was to go, and realized that she was on the wrong train- he train was supposed to leave from this platform as well. Another older lady had missed the ICE out of Hannover as well, and the final member of our soire was a gentleman who was headed to Göttingen. We discussed the joys of the German Rail system for quite a while. The conductor told the women who had gotten the wrong train that her best bet was to stay on till Nuremberg, as there were no more connections to be had at any other station, and that train got in at 0300 or so in the morning. We shared oranges and stores, me with my bad German, a few helps with their bad English, and it was actually a very nice experience.
At Göttingen of course I had missed the last train to Witzenhausen, but I had not missed the last train in the general direction of Witzenhausen. So I jumped on, and at the last station of Eichenberg, jumped off and thought well, if I have to walk, I will get there before the 6 am train. There is a path to Witzenhausen from Eichenberg. Not a lovely thought at MIDNIGHT, but well. Fortunately, I did not have to do this. There was a van taxi at the station and it turned out that a bunch of students in my department were also on the train! They recognized me and asked me if I wanted to come along to Witz! Wow. I wanted to go to the Markt (because now i had no cash) but they covered my Taxi fare. I walked home with a few of them, as they were headed to the student bar on campus which is literally a stone’s throw from my apartment. One woman had spent time in Arizona on a ranch and really loved that part of the US. We talked in German and English, mostly at that point, in English, as my German brain was full of Train Wreck Virus and could barely change gears, let along engage in traffic.
Adventures. Good ones.
