it’s quite cold outside (-10.8C when i left home) and i’m glad that the train to stuttgart is well heated. i pick up with the my trouble with the citynightline online ticket series where i had to leave it yesterday and make another call to the zurich offices of citynightline (+41 1 247 7577) — the agent answering the line is very friendly (thanks) and manages to cancel my online ticket within a couple of minutes — i get a 90% refund which is fine with me. before we ring of i (politely) suggest that they might want to include their number on the online ticket itself (which anyhow requires a full DIN A4 sheet of paper, most of which is taken up by advertisement) and also list it on their website — she promises to pass the suggestion on.
pheeew. 
glad to have that issue sorted, i enjoy the very sunny train ride from nürnberg to stuttgart, sipping my latte macchiato (bought at nürnberg main station in the 20min between the train from erlangen arriving and the IC to stuttgart departing), reading the süddeutsche zeitung, and take picture after picture of the fantastic winter wonderland passing by. i’m a big fan of the landscape between nürnberg and crailsheim (or “grailsheim” as some of the locals call it with its wide corridors of landscape just stretching to the distance, bounded on either side by rather small, undulating hills…and it’s spectacular and at the same time peaceful all year round: in the winter when it’s snowed over, the passing trains creating little snowy whirlwinds, fog hanging low in the shallow valleys, the sun slowly, almost gently, pushing his way through; but also in the spring, when everything become green again: the little patches of forest here and there, the meadows and fields; then summer, when all is green and warm (and sometimes hot) and one could just get lost day dreaming about where one could go, wander, sliding sneakingly through the train windows in to the distance…finally, the colours of autumn spreading across the trees, the rain pouring down, the fog eating into the fields…it is one of my most favourites parts of the zürich–nürnberg train ride.
