We are back on the train, heading west into Austria. The first leg of our journey is by regional train, and there are many stops on the way from Jena to Nurnberg where we will transfer to a high-speed train to Vienna. It is windy today, and the white blossoms blowing from the cherry trees are like snow against the brilliant blue sky. The wind is expected to bring much needed rain and a cold front, but I am glad for one more day of sunshine for our voyage.
The little towns we pass are indistinguishable to me – neat brick houses, well-tended gardens, a church steeple or two. The church steeples here are more relic than function. Reminders of another time. Like the tall single smoke stack in each town, a more or less permanent reminder of the old East Germany when the communist government supplied steam heat to each house. Between the towns are vast farmlands. There is a new unfamiliar crop, its unnatural florescent yellow-green stems and leaves waving in the wind, its color in stark contrast to the fields of soybean and corn. Ron tells me it is palm oil, used for bio fuel.
On this sunny Spring day, the old and the not-so-old, the forgotten and the resurrected, the scars and the new growth, all coexist peacefully. At least from the vantage point of a mildly curious traveler gazing through a train window.
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