Chapter 7: Train

I would like to talk about the craggy snow-capped peaks that we saw on the ride down from Munich. No really I’d love to, but I’m afraid I can’t, you see that would evoke all of zero imagery except that of me sitting in a moldy basement trying to think of the most overused cliché I can. I mean I don’t even want to know how many people have tried to talk about craggy snow-capped peaks until now. You know what craggy is? Craggy… is a vulture. With spectacles. No seriously. You say craggy and I think of a vulture with spectacles. I don’t even use the word spectacles, but that’s what the vulture’s got if you try to bring up the word craggy. And snow-capped? That sounds like something you’d screw on to your Lego land.

So, I assure you that I saw a lot of mountains on my way to Italy, but I also assure you that none of them had any vultures, nor any spectacles, and none of them had clip-on snow. So I guess I’ll just have to describe them to you, since obviously neither snow-capped nor craggy are gonna do the trick. Apologies to any bespectacled vulture activists / Lego enthusiasts out there.

Now, if I were to stay true to the style of this train ride, I would tell you about them occasionally in German, sometimes in Italian, and then every once in a while in English, just to mix things up. I would sometimes pick two of these languages to translate into, more often than not just use one, and then very occasionally if the mood struck me I would go ahead and use all three. My main objective, however, would be to make sure that absolutely no one speaker of any of these three languages can understand everything that is said. Keeps them on their toes.

Here is a rough transcription of what a mountainous description would sound like (in English) over the speaker system of Trenitalia: “Crshtyr sdghieh merhhug shetiuujkj skhei gyrho pehrlyyhh eueryshjhl crackle crackle crackle sdkoeur screeeech serouslekryil srlkoe ryrttt seorjkl hmmmmm eoruuiukelj swororujkf click lcikc crakcel tyryhje kachunk.”

Got all that? Good. Take notes. I may have to test you on this later. Ok, back to the story.

Last you heard we were pulling out of the Munich train station, a brand new crystal day (no not clear, just crystal), everything brightened by the recent storm. Well, if not brightened then at least broken. Soon we were out of the ugliness of wires and graffiti and rusty metal and looking instead at fields so green they would send a tree frog into a fresh bout of soul searching. The fields gave way to hills, the hills gave way to higher hills, the higher hills gave way to mountains. A crackly voice came over the speakers announcing that we had just crossed the border into Austria and suddenly BAM! there was a kangaroo. Oh, no wait, that’s Australia, sorry. I mean… bam, there were some spectacles and a vulture playing with his Legos.

I looked out the window and prodded Vanya in the knee.

“Hey look, some Alps.”

“Yep.”

They were big Alps. They were a long shot from Big Tesuque. Big Tesuque is smoothish. These Alps looked like something that an orc would be proud to wield. I look at these Alps and am overcome with a sudden burning desire to go defeat some evil Snow Queen who inevitably lives in them. And then once I defeated her I would be able to climb to the top of the tallest spire and already be at the front door of those guys who live in the clouds (you know, those guys). And then if I found any trolls that needed defeating on the way back down I would be able to just pick up the whole mountain and those little trolls would be so terrified at the very sight of so many spikes and cliffs that they would run crying home to their mothers who would stroke their ugly heads and make them vulture soup. If I tried to wield Big Tesuque at some trolls they would probably forget to kill me and decide to go sledding instead.

We passed through Innsbruck and I waved at the former Olympics. I also tried to take a picture of the former Olympics but a tree swept in front exactly at the crucial moment. Somewhere not long after Innsbruck we stopped at a little station in the middle of nowhere and received a very polite and concise message from our German crew telling us that they were now passing us over to the Italian crew and they wished us a nice remainder of the journey. The train ride got a little jerkier after that. And we never got another announcement.