trans-europa express

"the passenger
he rides and he rides...

he looks through his window,
what does he see?

he sees the bright and hollow sky,
he sees the stars come out tonight.
he sees the city's ripped backsides,
he sees the winding ocean drive..."

- iggy pop, "the passenger"


hues of grey, green, brown... the earthy shades of a landscape formed by centuries of agriculture and industry pass by my window. i am cocooned inside what looks, from the outside, like a high-speed silkworm, gliding smoothly across the continent with its cargo of students and pensioners, metalheads and businesswomen, migrants and those that would unfortunately rather get rid of them, tourists going skiing and conscripts heading home for the weekend.

we pass through towns of stunning beauty, of brutal functionalism, of mind-numbing mediocrity. medieval churches walled against marauders, red-brick ruins from the days of the industrial revolution and post-fordist logistics hubs consisting of pre-fab materials glide by.


a voice crackles over the intercom:

"naechster halt: muenchen hauptbahnhof..."