Punctuality: it’s in German blood. I would later learn the clock on the train platform I saw through the window is synched with every single other train platform clock in Germany. To the second. And the second hand is vigorous — none of this languid, gentle, metronome style progression like the school clocks of my youth. The German second hand lurches with precision between the previous moment and the next. At 8:34:59 p.m. I just happened to be looking at the clock, in anticipation of our 8:35 p.m. departure. Suddenly I felt like I was in a  Rube-Goldberg machine: the second hand slammed home, a referee’s whistle blew outside the windows, the train doors snapped closed with a bang. Then, smooth-as-butter, the train began to roll forward. Welcome. to. Germany.