The young man virtually pressed his nose against the window of the train, devouring the countryside flying by.
"Actually it looks just like over there," he said.Knut Hillmann and his young wife, Evelyn, are among the tens of thousands of East German refugees who have made their way to the West since restrictions prohibiting free movement across the border between Hungary and Austria were lifted in August.
Three weeks have passed since their arrival in the small West German border town of Hof. They are among some 7,600 other East Germans who sought refuge in the West German Embassy in the Czechoslovak capital of Prague trying to force their exit to the West.
In West Germany now, Hillman and his wife have found jobs in their respective fields - he as a heating technician and she as an electronics technician - and relate with pride that they have already found a small apartment.
"We are working like crazy to earn money," he said. "We have to buy everything from new winter clothes to a car."
Hillman dreams of buying a new car. During the train ride three weeks earlier he was speechless at the many car dealers along the way.
"Is it true that here you can just walk into a car dealer's shop and buy a car?" he asked. He could not believe that West Germans do not have to order cars and wait 10 to 15 years to get one.