European Heat Wave

It's been hot!  Real hot.  All across most of Europe.  Friday was an all-time high in Germany when Kitzingen hit 40.3 ºC (104.5 ºF).  Berlin hit 38.9 ºC (102 ºF).  This summer has seen record highs in Spain, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland.

More than 15 Czech cities have tied or set new all-time records so far this summer.

Claudia and Tünde have been at her parent's place in Rahnsdorf for the past week.  The plan was for me to catch the sleeper train to hang out in Berlin for the weekend.  Plus a day trip to Świebodzin, Poland to see the Christ the King statue.  Then I'll ride back with the girls to Brno.  Easy enough.

My train was supposed to leave Brno at 1:11 AM on Friday night and arrive in Berlin a little after 9 AM.  I knew that the extreme heat has been causing problems with the trains during the day.  I didn't really expect that it would cause a problem with the night trains.  What I didn't think about was that the delayed day trains caused a knock on effect delaying the night trains too.

Never ending train delay

At 3:30 AM by train was already 150 minutes late.  I finally got on board just before 4 AM.  I was so happy to have a reserved sleeping berth.  I managed to get to Berlin around 12:45 PM.

With a sleeper car reservation you get coffee and a croissant in the morning.  You also get two bottles of water - one flat and one sparkling.  All across Europe the blue cap means flat (still) water and the red cap means sparkling water.

In Hungary the color code is reversed where blue means sparkling and red means flat.  And since this was the Budapest to Berlin train we got Hungarian water.  Even though I do drink sparkling water it still catches me off guard when I get a fizzy blue bottle of water.