It's been a week since we returned from bella -- bellissima! -- Italia. Mercifully, German railway workers suspended their strikes before our departure, so we left Teutonia smoothly. La dolce vita ended in Tirol on our way back, when high-strung Germans began piling into the train. Germans have a habit of standing in the corridor with their luggage well before their stop, as if fearful they'll lack time to get out. They block others' path to the loo, not to mention the view out the window.

My wife and I, already growing wistful for more easygoing Italians, commented on this as evening approached and our iron horse sped northward. We changed trains in Munich, settling comfortably into a sleek, clean, spacious InterCityExpress. "All the same, I like them," she said, referring to the Germans. I think it was after she'd been to the toilet. Many years ago, when she called her mother from Germany on her first trip outside Russia, her mother asked:

"Well, daughter, what's it like there?"

"Mom, the toilets...!"

She simply couldn't get over how clean, well-equipped and pleasant-smelling German toilets are. If her wonderment surprises you, you've never been to Russia. The toilets we encountered in Italy, while better by far than Russian ones, were hardly up to the German variety. The bowls often lacked seats or there was no bowl at all, just a basin in the floor meant to squat over. Soap and paper towels were often missing, or the hand dryer didn't work. Cleanliness was random.

But oh that Italian art, architecture, food, landscape and climate!

It was dark outside now. Fulda. Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe. Göttingen. After Hanover, our carriage was nearly empty. We were looking forward to marking our return home as we usually do: with beer and fish at our favorite Kneipe, across the street from Hamburg's main train station. It's nice to know you needn't study the check for padding -- after two weeks in Italy, I felt like a damned auditor.

The train was nearing our station, so I got up to take our luggage down from the rack overhead. A middle-aged German couple, sitting across the aisle from us, also got up. Their stop, it turned out, was the one after ours. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the woman wrestling with a big suitcase. She dislodged the beast, suddenly, from the rack over her head.

It flew into the aisle and walloped me in the knee.

...

For several painful moments I thought, "My God, a nitwit has crippled me!" The woman proceeded to apologize profusely. Her husband bawled her out. She may have stoked his ire by kneeling down next to me and solicitously rubbing my leg.

The train came to a halt, and my wife and I made for the door. I was limping slightly. The German couple, back in their seats, stared straight ahead.

Hello, Deutschland.