Back to the Beginning - Part 3 - From the End to a New Beginning

May 2nd

I’m not going to lie, I’m not really looking forward to this particular day. The aim is to head south to Speyer in order to visit the grave of my parents. I hadn’t been down there since that depressing grey day in January 2018, when I had laid my father to rest, that only happening four months after saying goodbye to my mother for the last time. So yeah, this is not going to be an easy trip, not by a long shot. But I owe it to them, especially after nearly six years!

Thankfully, the day starts nice and calm, as the hotel is nowhere near as busy as it was on the previous day, and breakfast is a decidedly relaxed affair. Getting to the station is equally relaxed, as the “siege” of the city had been lifted overnight, so trams are operating as normal. The fun starts at Frankfurt Central Station, where getting a ticket turns into a bit of a guessing game as massive queues stretch through the entire station concourse. The reason soon becomes apparent, as May 2nd turns out to be the start of sales for the new “Deutschland Ticket”, a monthly subscription ticket for public transport throughout the country. Significant parts of Deutsche Bahn’s ticket offices at the station have been given over to that particular purpose. With a 1st class ticket in hand, I make my way to the 1st class lounge on the first floor. While I do manage to get my WiFi issues sorted, the lounge must have been redesigned in the time since I left the city, with at-place service only instead of self service, which I don’t really like. It still makes for a nice relaxing break before making my way down to the platform to catch my train.

To be fair, it's not unusual to have Frankfurt Central looking like a construction site...

How many times have I run through here to catch a connecting train on a connection that turned out to be far too tight? Whether on my way to work or home?

The station concourse remains impressive though!

This train is ICE 277, An ICE 4 trainset with a final destination of Basel in Switzerland. It’ll take me as far as Mannheim Central. It’s been a while since I’ve been on one of Germany’s ICE high speed trains, and it‘s definitely a premiere for me to be on an ICE 4, as they were still on the drawing board when I left Germany back in 2012. The train is comfortable, with the 1st class seats being more than wide enough for my considerable derrière, and leg space is pretty generous as well. The train is pretty full though, which means that it‘s hard to get good photos of the interior. The WiFi is excellent though and we depart bang on time, although the trip itself is decidedly weird. 

As a former frequent rail traveller in Germany, this view from the  DB Lounge is still pretty familiar.

This, on the other hand, is new for me. The Class 412 train-sets, branded as the ICE 4, were still on the drawing board when I left Germany.

Unfortunately. the train is packed, so I couldn't really take any representative shots of the interior.

From 2009, when my parents moved to Speyer, to 2017, the train ride from Frankfurt to Speyer was a regular occurrence, first on a monthly basis, then from 2012 onwards a few times each year. So all the views outside the window are eerily familiar, as are the station names that pass by outside: Mörfelden-Walldorf, Groß-Gerau, Riedstadt Goddelau, Limburgerhof, all of these names and place I‘ve seen before, and some of these places seem to have changed all that much over the last five years. Yet, one thing sours this trip down memory lane and that‘s the fact that this time, there will not be a cozy apartment waiting for me upon arrival in Speyer, nor will the smiling faces of my parents. Still, as mentioned before, I owe it to those two.

The views passing by outside the window are painfully familiar. Landscapes, panoramas,...

...towns, or stations, all seem like I never left.

This continues in the S-Bahn from, Mannheim to Speyer.

How many times have I passed through this station... Yet, it still looks like nothing has changed.

Hello Speyer. It's been a while.

The visit to the cemetery in Speyer turns out to be just as emotional as I‘d expected. To see the life of two amazing people reduced to a simple grave plate, and the urns underneath, unearths a lot of emotions that I thought I‘d dealt with. The sadness, the loss, all the words I never got a chance to say to them, the experiences and successes that I‘ll never be able to share with them, all of this and more came straight back to the surface. And yes, there are tears, lots of them. However, amongst all that despair, something else has also appeared. On this sunny and mild afternoon in early May, as sunlight flickers through the leaves of the many old trees on the cemetery grounds, I understand how right my dad was when he decided on this particular grave plot. The name plate on the grave is simple but beautiful, and the trees provide welcome shade and relief from the surprisingly intense sun. I guess I should have known that my dad wouldn‘t let his old arch enemy, the sun, have the last word. More than that though, there‘s a gentle serenity about this place, something that I hadn‘t experienced on my previous visits.

What remains of a life?

Still, they chose a nice spot for their final resting place. And let's be honest here: Seeing my parents surrounded by absolute chaos isn't exactly unusual...

The top floor of that building houses their old apartment, which is now an AirBnB. So near, and yet so far...

Back to the train station...

I leave the cemetery with mixed feelings.On one hand, the intense grief, that feeling of loss, is still there. However, unlike when I was last here back in January 2018 to lay my dad to rest, this feeling is nowhere near as all-encompassing and suffocating as it was back then. There is hope now, optimism, and the distinct chance that my best days may yet be ahead of me. To be perfectly fair though, this hopeful feeling in my heart and head is not echoed by my feet, which are not used to this level of activity and make sure to express their acute displeasure on my way back to the train station in Speyer.

An S-Bahn service pulling into Speyer. A very familiar sight indeed...

Is this 2023 or 2013? Am I heading back to my old apartment, or just to a hotel room?

I just love the TGV Duplex. That Inoui branding on the other hand? Not really. I'd really like to know what SNCF management were smoking when they came up with that. And where can I get some of it?

The interior is a completely different matter though. Those chairs are amazing!

This view over the seemingly endless sidings and stabling yards of Frankfurt Central Station used to be a daily occurrence for me. We're still several kilometres away from the actual station, mind you. Oh, and this is the last picture I took before my iPhone packed it in due to a lack of battery.

The trip back to Frankfurt turns out to be a bit more chaotic than expected. Speyer‘s central station is getting refurbished and just like in Frankfurt, the ticket office is overrun by people trying to buy the „Deutschland Ticket“, resulting in surprisingly long queues. At the same time, the ticket machines are under siege by a large group of pensioners on a bike tour, one that seems to include a surprising number of vineyards along the way. Eventually, I do manage to get my return ticket, although, any chance of grabbing a seat at the station are eliminated when a school group rocks up to the station mere minutes before the departure of my train. Thankfully though, I seem to be the only guy with a 1st class ticket, so I at least get some peace and quiet on the train. Once in Mannheim, the „party“ continues. I‘m unable to make my planned connection due to my leg, which means that I obviously have to wait for the next train to Frankfurt, preferably one that takes me directly to Frankfurt Central. By pure chance, this turns out to be an inbound TGV from Paris Gare de‘l Est that has managed to pick up a 40-minute delay somewhere along the way. I love me a nice dual-floor TGV, so I‘m more than happily with this development. It is only a few days later that I notice the synchronicity here. I took the same train back on January 10th, 2018, after my dad‘s funeral, a trip that would see me turn my back on Germany for quite a few years, and I can‘t help but wonder if a certain someone helped in that regard. The chaotic nature would definitely fit with my parents' sense of humour.

The last bit of chaos for the day doesn’t make itself known until shortly before my train pulls into Frankfurt. I’d been using my iPhone as a secondary camera for much of the day and now, as the skyline of Frankfurt towers over the endless expanse of sidings and stabling yards that make up part of Frankfurt Central, I get the consequences of that intense use, and the phone quits for the day. With my iPhone charging cable having a spa day in my hotel room, the hunt is on to quickly organise a power bank. In another blast from the past, my path leads me to myZeil, an upmarket shopping centre that became the grave for much of my hard-earned money in the years between its opening in 2009 and my move to Ireland. It is in one of the stores in there, a big box electronics store called Saturn, that I strike gold. Not only do I find a power bank, but I find the exact model I’d been trying to find back in Cork for well over a year, without much success.

Sometimes, a toastie and some crisps are all you need.

I just love the design of the One Lounge!

I’d originally planned to spend some of the evening down by the riverside, but my feet quickly make it clear that this is a very bad idea indeed. So, instead I make my way back to my hotel to sort out my pictures as well as some of the notes that form the basis of this blog post, before making my way down into the lounge to chill out and relax. Given the stylish design of that lounge, this turns out to be pretty much the best way forward.