Our SQ flight left Singapore at 11:50 p.m. and arrived at Frankfurt at 6:30 a.m. the following day, Sunday. The total travel time was around 12 hours and 40 minutes. On board the flight, they served us three meals. Since we couldn’t finish all the stuff in the meals, especially Albert’s, I packed some of those that we could still eat (we still had to take a five-hour train to Bremen) so my bag became really bloated and heavier.
During the flight, Albert was behaved quite well which was really good since we didn’t want to disturb the other passengers. He watched two movies, his favourite “Thomas and Friends” and “Bolt”. He also was kept busy by some computer games. When he got tired, he managed to sleep for three hours. He woke up two hours before we landed in Frankfurt and saw the pretty sunrise from above the clouds. My two boys greeted me Happy Mother’s Day!
I was not really impressed with the Frankfurt airport terminal (the airport seemed comparable with NAIA terminal 1). There were only four immigration officers on duty at that time (two of which were handling for European passports) so there was a long queue for non-European travellers.
We had a sort of difficult time looking for our connecting train. Luckily, we arrived there three hours before the train departure so we had enough time to look for the train. We followed the signs (saying “long distance trains”) but were led to the wrong train terminal. The German train system is quite complex and they have a lot of train types (city trains, regional trains, long distance trains, express trains, etc.) The express train that we were taking was in another terminal, but also in the airport. Luckily.
Anyways, Alvin had to have our rail passes validated first before we could board the train (or else we might pay a fine). It took him around 30 minutes to do this because the queue was super long! For our food, I bought two cheese buns (costing 0.90 each), a chicken sandwich for 4.50 euros, and 1 L Evian bottled water for 1.90 euros (bottled water is expensive in Europe and I only saw three brands: Evian, Volvic and Vittel).
We went to the designated train platform 20 minutes before the train arrived. It was really cold! The temperature was probably 10 - 13 C. The trains were very punctual and departed on time. A practical advice: it’s good to arrive several minutes before the train departure to know the exact location of your train coach as the trains can really be very long! It’s also advisable (always is) to travel light as the train floors are not levelled with the platform. You have to lift you luggage by yourself and do it very quickly.
The train (ICE, or inter-city express) departed Frankfurt at 9:57 a.m. and we had to travel for another five hours to reach Bremen, Germany. The train could go super-fast, up to 300 kph, but amazingly there was not much vibration that you could feel inside the coaches! The travel was much smoother than the MRT in Singapore even when the trains were running at blistering speed!
I feel that travelling through the train was really more enjoyable than if we travelled by plane to Bremen. We had a good view of Germany’s beautiful countryside landscape, old castles on hilltops, villages and towns. The train passed and stopped at the following cities: Mainz, Koblenz, Bonn, Koln (Cologne), Wuppertal, Hagen, Dortmund, Munster, Munster (Westf), Osnabruck and lastly Bremen.
When we arrived at Bremen, there was a football riot. Police were all over the place and the rioters were shouting and marching through the train station. Not really scared, just shocked with the very loud noise. We took a cab from the train station to the Hotel Bremer Haus. The hotel was actually near from the train station but we were very tired so we just decided to take cab.
We reached the hotel around 4 p.m. After eating the cakes that I packed from Singapore Airlines and the Rollo(cost 4.20 euros) I bought from the train station, we all went to bed.
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