Once upon a Time There was a Station

Anhalter Bahnhof, originally uploaded by Ulla2004.

He went through one of the gates, slowly sipping his coffee. He was the only one at this place, obviously it was too cold for most of the people to leave their warm and cosy homes.

Suddenly he heard a funny noise – the noise of a steam locomotive arriving. He turned his head, maybe someone had got that noise as a ring tone for his cell phone.  He could not see anybody. He slowly moved his head – could it be the first sign of tinnitus? This was the first day in three weeks that he had the time to walk the streets of Berlin.

The noise stopped, but was replaced by a male voice announcing the arrival from the train from Munich to Berlin.

He remembered having read about the ruins of the Anhalter Bahnhof which once was a terminal for all the trains coming from the south of Germany. But that was ages ago!

“Sorry, Sir, is there a place where we can have food and drink?” It was really strange to hear the voices, and not to see anything, anybody, just the wide green in front of him. In his back was the Stresemann Café, so he pointed in that direction.

“Ah yes, now we see, what a wonderful restaurant. They even have Bavarian Beer. And look, what a nice handmade sign! It says “Schottenhamel”. Thank you, thank you very much, Sir!”

Schottenhamel? Bavarian beer? As far as he knew the Stresemann Café served nothing else than Berliner Pilsner, the local beer.

The noise of people rushing past him through the gates stopped. He finished his latte macchiato and went back through the gate. There was the Stresemann Café, everything looked normal. People were walking on the sidewalks, cars were driving along. Everything was normal.