It has taken a while to add concluding notes to the siblings' backpacking adventure and my final segment of traveling, but better late than never. After the whirlwind few days in berlin (I was blown off balance by the contrast of Northern German landscape to the spanish landscape I had become accustomed to being in), I introduced Ben to his first train ride, which I had talked up, a lot. I was looking forward to the 5 hour ride, a good picnic, and a long nap as the train meandered through the countryside. Yet everything, everything, went wrong. Except that we did make the train, but perhaps that was not a good idea in hindsight. Unfortunately the grocery stop for picnic supplies did not happen, the train itself was old, overcrowed, and stuffy with stale air,
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