Night trains (the sleeper trains, not the ones where you have to sit and they go at night) sound great in theory but, after having taken one once, I’m not sure whether I’d enjoy it as a regular means of transportation.

I don’t think it would scale and thus would always be pretty expensive.

I had to push my heavy luggage up high into a compartment above the beds, and navigate in very tight quarters, which works fine if you’re young and have no back problems, but older folks might struggle.

I traveled in a 2-bed compartment with my partner, not sure whether I’d enjoy a cramped 6-bed compartment.

I’d much rather have a good connection in the morning and enough space on the train to use the trip as a work day (remote worker privilege, for sure) or reading day, and arrive in the evening, or, if the distance is very long, have affordable accommodation at the major train stations (not overpriced hostels with a club in the courtyard, which happened to me in Paris once).

So all in all, I feel like the sleeper train thing seems more of a touristy event-thing than a regular mode of transportation, at least if other options are available …

Sorry to disappoint you … in Barcelona-Sants, you have to go through one … not the body-scan thing yet, but you have to pass your luggage through a scanner, there’s a line, and you definitely have to bring some time, be there 20 min before at least …

I get that … It’s just my impression that the “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” mentality is pretty prevalent in general and people might read an article and use it to confirm that mentality, see a phrase like “critical learning period is closed” and say “see, why even try”. Not you personally, just to be clear.

So I didn’t want to leave that uncommented because I think despite that we should foster a culture of learning at any age.

It might be scientifically accurate but I think the notion of an age cap is misguided. Just because it’s harder doesn’t mean it’s impossible, and the idea of an “age cap” just makes it seem like you shouldn’t even try (might just be my interpretation).

Also it’s just super helpful to learn something even though you’re not perfect.

I’ve started learning English at 10, put in a lot of work over the years, and it got to near-native in my late 20ies (certified by my language-nerd native-english-speaker wife). At 20 I had trouble booking hostel rooms over the phone.

In my 40ies now and I feel like most of the skills that make “me” today, including playing instruments, programming languages, all kinds of crafts, I learned way past ten and many of them past 20. Started learning Spanish at around 35, nowhere near native but decently conversational. About to start the next course in Catalan soon.

So, this is the one thing where I think people just should ignore the science (which is usually not my stance at all) and get cracking, you can teach an old dog new tricks, and it’s always helpful and fun.