Night Train to Vienna

The sight of the aging Austrian couchette car was eerily reassuring as I came to the platform for the Night Train to Vienna. But there was no shortage of drama as I attempted to fight my way into the four-berth compartment, as a squabbling Greek couple was first blocking my entry, claiming ownership of the space, and then attempting to haggle with the harried attendant, who explained that the adjacent sleeping car was out of order. They were stuck with me, and as it later an older Serb gentleman carrying a briefcase from a team handball tournament in Slovenia.

This explained why I was unable to book sleeping car accommodation for this trip, which offers a softer, quieter journey. It also explains the unusually packed couchette car. To be fair, the vaunted lie-flat airline seat is no more comfortable than this couchette-no longer or softer, really. The clientele is another story. Fifteen minutes after departure, the cacophony of passengers yammering in Serbian and other assorted tongues of Mitteleuropa make sleep seem a distant possibility, even with an extra hit of valerian root-spiked melatonin. It's a good thing I brought the booze and the beer. I'm going to need all the help I can get.

The older gentleman voices concern about the coach getting. robbed. I've got my valuables placed strategically so I'm not that bothered, but when he tries to padlock and chain the compartment the Greeks and I form a united front. The issue seems settled after we forced the Serb to attempt to subvert the seemingly secure built-in locking device. The sheepish grin on the Serb's part implies a possible victory on our part. We shall see.

A relatively fitful night, marked by a dream where a train ride through Germany gives way to a drive down an Interstate through Texas with characters vaguely reminiscent of my old German friend Till and actor Peter Riegert, who starred as Boone in Animal House and Assemblyman Zellman in the Sopranos.

Dream collided with reality at 7 am with the smell of brake smoke. I was awoken by the Greeks, but by 7:10 it was unclear what was going on. There were a few passengers walking outside, but we hadn't been ordered off and the heat was still running.

Then, suddenly, the world "schnell" was uttered. While it literally means fast, I learned from the stern hotel maid during my infamous Hamburg trip that it meant "get the f*@k out,fast!". I grabbed my luggage and was ordered through the couchette car and the genuinely smoky out-of-order sleeping car into the second class coach. Shortly thereafter, the train then moved across the Hungarian countryside.

Then it stopped for a while in a post-communist relic of a town called Tatabanya. Seeing a brand new Hungarian train on the other platform and having my Inter-rail ticket in hand, I make a run for it. Western Europe will have to wait a couple more days. I head for Budapest. And, alas, I discover I had sacrificed my latest MP3 player in the rush to leave the couchette car. Grrr.
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