Going Home

Plan now to get from Kleve to Rendsburg.

Prob take the train although a car share is possible.

A car share might cost $30EUR, maybe $60 for that trip.
A comfy train trip, first class.. now that´s worth using the 1st class ticket for. Whip out the EURail pass and with all the bravado you can muster look the conductor in the eye as you show him your ticket. It looks genuine (it is!) and totally different from every other ticket he checks hundreds of each day. It´s not worth his while finding out what it is, so long as he believes it is legitimate and he can acknowledge it.

All things being equal he smiles and moves on.

Kinda cheeky although train travel here is so expensive that a little fudge here and there makes a '5 day travel in 2 month ticket' such good value.

Then again, realize that this one trip put me on 3 trains with 3 conductors that checked my ticket three times. I was stamped once in 6 train rides and the conductor still wasn't sure what the ticket was!

However, that meant that good ol´ DeutschBahn "Doitch A Bahn" didn´t really give away much .. with so few international travellers (compared to locals) it means that I`m either sitting in a first class carriage or crouched somewhere between the second class carriages.

It´s kinda of all or nothing.

A DB reservation can cost 5-30 euro for the first class seat - that's over and above the ticket price - which means that it does get quite expensive.

There are few discounts available for locals. City travel is much like Melbourne, Sydney, Brissy or Perth. Travelling through Berlin is quite cheep; its a big city and travel within it encompasses every living need. I get the feeling the German government doesn't really want it's residents to move about too much; perhaps a hang-over from a bygone era?

Once this ticket expires I think I´ll ask the guy at the reserviat desk for an global pass ticket. Then again, the next phase is cheep plane flights. I'm going to fly to England for about 23EUR, on to Dublin for about 5EUR and who knows wherever else!

Thinking I will stay six months at least. My original plan from a few years ago put me in Europe for 2 - 3 years on first inspection and I could easily stay that long. I suppose that means tending to the survival fund with a little extra for expense back home.. car storage, bub, fines, registrations, and whatever else.

It's good here.. I like it.