I was at Biergarten just now. It’s still a nice place, and there are still people there who remember you, but some things have changed and not for the better. You may be glad of being retired now.

The one thing I liked most of all (besides you) was the Oktoberfest seating. When you are a single traveler it’s nice to be able to be seated with others you can chat with. Table for one isn’t that. It’s pretty lonely actually, which is why I usually sit at the bar. But Biergarten had this really nice Oktoberfest seating thing and I loved it not only because it made it very easy for a single diner to get seated, but also I could have a good time with the others at my table.

You told me once, and this was a very helpful thing you did for me, that I was good at getting a stand offish table talking to each other. But that was because you have a bunch of built-in ice breakers at Disney World. Hi…where y’all from? This your first time here…? What’s your favorite park? Where are you staying? And so forth. I told you once about the gay friends who had me convinced I was too shy and that was why I am single. But no…I’m just a little introvert who needed ice breakers to talk to anyone. You said back then that I needed better friends. You were right.

But Oktoberfest seating at Biergarten is no more, because apparently Americans don’t like being seated together with people they don’t know. And it’s not just a Biergarten it seems.

I took the train down from Baltimore this trip. I had a bunch of Amtrak points from cross-country rail trips I’ve taken and I used some for this vacation. I’ve taken the train a bunch and something I like about rail travel that reminds me of Biergarten is the dining car and being seated with some other passengers and being able to chat with them as we go. In my mind it’s one of the best things about rail travel…meeting and chatting with people in the dining and lounge cars.

This trip, for the first time, I heard the dining car staff as they called for passengers with reservations at whatever o:clock to come to the dining car to be seated, warning the passengers that they would be seated with other travelers who they might not know. Because seating is limited in those dining cars and they use every available space to seat people.

Have Americans become so insular they can’t stand eating with other people anymore?? Oh well…

I just don’t get it. But I’m weird I reckon. Some of the best conversations I’ve ever had were in a dining car, or at Biergarten. Not counting the ones I used to have with you.