Next week I will take the train to visit my family. Normally I visit them about three times a year. Once for christmas, once in the spring (around Easter) and once in the fall (where many people in our family have their birthday).
What is always strange is the train ride there and back.
I sit in the train, in a comfy seat. It's warm and cozy, people talking quietly. The ride takes about three hours. I look through the window, and over the course of the ride, the landscape will slowly change: more hills, more forests, it'll become colder. Since it's fall, it's often cold and rainy. From my warm lit cozy place in the train, I peek outside into the grey and cold autumn weather. The forests will be dark, maybe with patches of snow shining here and there. I will hills and misty valleys pass by, as well as villages and a few cities, with lights shining through the windows.
I then often wonder what it would be like to be out there, next to the forest. Walking over the muddy paths, feeling the chilly air creep in under the clothes. The train would rush off with it's 200mp/h, and then? Silence. Dark blue sky, or maybe even darker grey sky, above me. In the very distance probably the sound of some cars, as the moist air will carry sound very well.
Or I might wonder what's going on at the houses I'm looking at, as the train rushes past them. In some, couples will be quarreling. Maybe a kid hiding in his/her room. In some others: sex. In others again, someone sitting alone in front of the TV, not noticing how the train carries me by.
With each mile, I'll associate the landscape more with home. In Stuttgart, I will have to switch trains. About 8 minutes time to do so. Not much, since the train I'll arrive with his very long, and I'll have quite a long distance to get to the next train. I'll remember dates I had in those areas, or how I spend time there with friends. Trips to the villages this train passes through, that I had with my family. The zoo, the parks, the steep vine-covered slopes of the valley the Neckar river makes it's way through.
Those trips are on the one hand calm and serene, and on the other hand depress me.