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I choose to commute to Frankfurt using the ICE high-speed train because of it's comfort and speed, so paying that little bit extra is worth it.

Lately though, I've been plagued by various inconveniences like bad weather, technical problems, evening constructions, and most recently an accident right before Arnhem which blocked all trains for a couple hours.

The worse part is not so much the delays as it is having to transfer trains, from one side of the platform to the other or walking up and down stairs lugging my heavy baggage to the other platform way down to the other side of the station.

Most of the travelers are just like me, carrying tons of luggage and extra bags of goodies and such. You have to lift off your heavy bag from above, squeeze down the isles and hop off of the train in search of the transfer point.

Once there, you have to squeeze back in, a complex traffic jam inside as folks meet and have to pass one another along a thin isle not made for two-way traffic.

The first week I felt exhilarated by the comfort and speed of the ICE train, thinking wow this is great, but not anymore.

I have a simple choice. Expect and accept delays as they arise, grab a book and relax. Or get all upset and tense, making things even worse because of a lousy attitude.

Now whenever I have to pass all of the grumpy fellow travelers, I just smile and hop temporarily on a vacant seat, until the masses have continued there ways and I can search out my reserved seat next to the window.

On this line, I travel from Utrecht to Frankfurt.

If all goes well, my travel itinerary looks something like this:

• Home to Gouda Train Station - 10 minutes.
• Gouda to Utrecht by train - 20 minutes.
• Wait in Utrecht - 15 minutes.
• Utrecht to Frankfurt by train - 3 hours 55 minutes.
• Wait in Frankfurt - 10 minutes.
• S-Bahn from Frankfurt to Eschborn Sud - 12 minutes.
• Walk to my apartment - 20 minutes.

Total time from door to door: 5 hours and 37 minutes. Fortunately, my apartment is only a ten minute walk to work, which makes up for all of that traveling.

Early evening drive in the Frankfurt city center.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Frankfurt is a very modern European city. Although the city was severely bombarded during WWII, most of it was rebuilt from nothing, showing the impressive German resolve to achieve great things despite tremendous obstacles.

Today this city is the financial and transportation center of Germany and the largest financial center in continental Europe. It will certainly be an interesting experience working there.

My new apartment is located on the outskirts of the city where I'll be residing weekdays starting this December. It's easy walking distance from my work which is a nice luxury these days, especially in such a busy, populated area.

In retrospect, the chances of certain events coming together in that specific exact order, and during those specific exact time slots, seems highly unlikely if not impossible. The following chain of events takes place on a crowded train on my way back home from work.

With my left hand I continue to make various movements on the touchpad while at the same time keeping my netbook balanced precariously on my knee. With my other hand, I pick up the Cola bottle with my lower three fingers, and using thumb and forefinger I try to unscrew the cap.

This movement proves a bit too challenging for the anatomy of my hand and its fused metacarpals. At once the plastic cap is screwed off completely loose, and the awkward pressure between thumb and forefinger flicks the cap to the side. It falls to the floor and keeps spinning on its side.

The uncapped bottle is put back down on the narrow mini shelf next to the window. I then bend over, try to reach down and grab the spinning cap which has purposely hidden itself between the other passengers' feet.

At that exact instant, the train comes to an abrupt halt. This jerking motion gives my bending back just the right extra momentum to reach far enough and scoop up the little cap.

At the next instant someone in the adjacent compartment yells, "Did someone just knock over a Cola bottle or what?"

The law of inertia dictated that my uncapped soda-pop bottle should tip over and fall perfectly between the arm rest and the wall. It angles downward slightly so that most of its shaken contents had sloshed out and foamed the poor passenger sitting behind me.

Sorry about that. Oh, it doesn't matter, don't worry about it.

I'm thinking what a mess and see tentacles of amoeba-like protrusions spreading along the floor as the train shifts back and forth. Do I need to clean up the mess? How then, when I don't have anything with me which can absorb it.

Feeling embarrassed, I grab an old newspaper and go about rubbing non-absorbent paper on the liquid. The gesture that I am trying to improve the situation, when in fact I'm making matters much worse, seems to calm down the passengers around me. Though the one guy across from me has this aggravating snicker on his face, though it could be a smile of compassion.

When the train arrived at my destination, I felt very relieved to escape this uncomfortable situation. The soles of my shoes kept sticking to the cement walkway, but after passing through a couple of puddles the stickiness went away.

Just as in life with its many difficult decisions, when entering the train one must choose between sitting on the right side or on the left side. A correct decision will define the quality of the trip from beginning to end, so it's fairly important that a certain amount of deliberation takes place.

Assuming that there are still enough unoccupied places in the current carriage or in one nearby, the choice is based on a couple of non-trivial though important factors.

The right side of the train. This is the sunny side which is nice if you are seeking some extra warmth on days which are not too overcast, say when the temperature is a bit cooler than usual. There might be a slight glare while looking at the beautiful countryside passing by, especially during the fall and winter when the sun drags its feet a bit lower on the horizon. If reading a book or a newspaper, the extra light makes perusing such literature a more pleasant activity, at least for me where clarity and contrast of black on white is important.

The left side of the train. This is the shadowy side which is better if one is trying to read email on a laptop or on exceptionally warm days when a crowded train carriage can cause one to sweat and huff and puff more than usual. While more pleasurable to sit in the shade during the latest heat wave, most others are thinking the same as you. Meaning that the extra mass of human cytoplasm will tend to collect on this side of the train and make any available seating much more cramped and uncomfortable. Especially if that fat lady who always smiles at you comes and sits next to you again.

The main problem for me is trying to remember which is the right side and which is the left side of the train. In the afternoon, the train travels in the opposite direction as in the morning. So remembering is a bit less obvious than just looking at which side of the tracks you are standing on. The same train might stop several meters further up or even at a different platform. Once inside of the train, searching a while for an unoccupied seat, one becomes confused and disoriented. On hot days vertigo might kick up the dust in your head.

If by chance you are rushed and forget to think about right versus left, then the odds remain fifty-fifty anyway. Just don't think and get on with your life like all of the other normal folks sitting around you.

This is a little bit creepy, but my early morning train is almost completely empty. Has there been some kind of nuclear holocaust I'm missing out on? Hopefully when I arrive in Amsterdam, there'll be many more kind folks milling about and bumping into me.

The oriental guy sitting across from me was neatly dressed in his suit and tie, and he had opened up about the largest Gannt Chart I had ever seen.

Right there during rush hour in the middle of the cramped train was this poor soul with a panicked look on his face, unfolding and refolding the large chart this way and that, trying to make sense of the chaos with squinting eyes through thick lenses.

At the same time, he had a ruled notepad precariously balanced on his left knee, scribbling it with various arrows and boxes, despite the bumpy ride and the squeezed bodies around him, which resulted in jagged lines and oval, squiggly boxes.

On his other knee he had his laptop and a stapled file of technical specifications, which he had to refer to continuously in order to make sure that his Gannt Chart and the scribbles on the notepad and the complex thoughts inside of his head all made sense and matched up perfectly.

No cracks or other inconsistencies to be found, he hoped. His boss was known to be an abrasive character, and he would be demanding one hundred percent accuracy, bombarding him with a long list of difficult and prying questions.

This was definitely not the most conducive surroundings to make last-minute preparations for such an important meeting, indeed one prone to error and mismatches which could put the million dollar project at serious risk.

When the guy packed up and left the train, I wished him luck and thought positively for him. However, he could only afford me a nervous half smile as he disappeared off into the distance on his way to the his own personal fork in the road.

Some people are capable of sitting completely motionless during the whole train ride and do nothing except stare into the thin air in front of them.

One young man in particular, who commutes the same sixty minute trip as I do, accomplishes this feat quite admirably.

The only major movements he makes are when he enters the train carriage and takes his seat, and then an hour later stands up and exits the train.

Are these people truly thinking beings?

This is a pretty funny story which happened to me on the train this morning.

Sitting across from me was this guy curled up comfortably next to the window, sleeping and motionless, and having sweet dreams.

This huge woman whose wide-angle bottom didn't even fit between the walkway squeezed her way to our spot, took a couple huffs and a puff, and plopped down hard next to the sleeping guy.

Half of his body became smothered under the excessive mass of cytoplasm, the whole of his right arm and shoulder disappeared, and he was shaken awake as if from an awful nightmare.

He looked so confused with his wide eyes, freaked out for half a minute before he could make sense of what just happened.

He sat there being overly polite for a couple of stops, and our gazes would meet occasionally, me cracking a subtle smile. However, he was too grumpy to react.

Then he got up and sat next to me.

The man standing next to me was wearing a fancy suit and carrying a leather briefcase in his right hand. He was waiting to take the same train that I was.

The next time I turned to look in his direction to see if the train was coming yet, he'd collapsed right then and there in front of me. A group of people attired in various kinds of uniforms was kneeling on the ground attending to him with urgent motions and concerned looks. Considering the gravity of the situation, they remained quite calm following closely a coordinated process of unwritten rules.

One tall skinny guy wearing a cap was talking into his porto-phone saying that they needed an ambulance right away. He walked right past me and was having some difficulty orienting himself so that he could provide the proper directions on how to get there. At the front of the train station, no better come in from the back, wait I'm on platform three next to the snack bar, so better come in from the side entrance and ...

The poor businessman was lying on the ground with his head tilted at an awkward angle on the leather suitcase, which served the purpose of a make-do pillow on the otherwise hard cement ground. He was motionless and his face was ashen like a wax-figure stricken cold by Medussa's gaze. The people who were bent over him were talking to him in muffled voices, assuring the waxen figure that everything was going to be alright.

I would say that this person was not much younger than I, at most five years. My first impression was that he seemed pretty healthy standing there next to me just a minute ago. Holding the leather briefcase so firmly in his right hand. The one moment glancing quickly at his wristwatch and then the next moment something cracking open reality and slapping him hard in the face.

Although I had been originally feeling pretty grumpy this morning having to go to work again, I think I'm feeling more thankful about life. Might as well enjoy life while I can.

Just stop for a moment. Have a look around and you'll see mobs of people rushing to get who knows where. They never seem to reach their destinations.

Nothing more than a non-stop parade of meandering souls coming and going. One lady isn't looking where she is going and jars me to the side. Another person passing in the opposite direction, bumps me back into the mass of cytoplasm.

Brownian motion at its best.

From the slightly elevated entrance, I can look pretty far down to the end of the main hallway. I feel like I am floating on a restless sea of bobbing heads.