Continuing my wild adventures, this morning I went to the larger supermarket several towns away. Here’s why this was dangerous: on Sunday mornings, the trains run hourly only. This would give me 37 minutes to get from the train station in Belval to the supermarket and back to the train station. The downside of missing the train wouldn’t have been merely that I’d have to wait an hour at a train station (although there’s not much there except for some benches and recycling bins) but I’d have to buy another ticket (or be fined). Yep, I was using the cheaper 2 hour ticket. Unfortunately, I’ve been feeling a bit feverish, so I’m sure that affect my judgment.

Anyway, when I got to Belval, the skywalk between the station and the mall was closed. I should have expected this since the supermarket is the only store in the mall that opens on Sunday. So I had to take the long way around the mall to get to the store. Once there, I moved quickly. The store was empty except for two other shoppers and one woman stocking (it turned out that she was also the cashier). I made it through the checkout in record time and was just about to sign the credit card receipt when the cashier discovered that she didn’t have a pen. She looked everywhere, evening went banging around in the back office. Meanwhile, in my head the theme from Jeopardy is playing. Finally she locates a pen and I’m on my way. But then, no!, I was actually 14 minutes early. I was the only one at the station as fog rolled in.

So far I have been amazingly wrong about how many people will be on the trains. I thought I’d be the only one this morning leaving from Differdange, but there were about a dozen. Once I went at rush hour expecting to be surrounded by other passengers, but I had the upper deck of the train car all to myself.

I forgot to mention Monoprix’s attempt to apologize for not having men’s clothes:

It was great cheese at an awesome price, but 1€? I’m not that easy.

After working for several hours, I took a walk. It’s amazing that in 30 minutes you can go from a city full of life to the abandoned D’Mine Grôven in the middle of the woods.

At the beginning, the trail followed the barely visible train tracks.

The are some neat old photos here for the trains that once used these tracks (see the pictures of Differdange and Thillenberg). These are more recent photos of the Thillenberg Mines, and these give you a look inside.