The Night(mare) Train

What is there to say about the night train… What we had hoped to be a relaxing train ride as we sleep our way across Southeastern Europe turned out to be a hot, cramped, uncomfortable night train of our nightmares. Kelly has now caught the cold that I had in Florence and is now miserable. The only good thing we have to say about the night train was that we did have a private sleeper car. Kelly awoke to find her hands and arms covered in an unknown dirt-like substance that refuses to come off even after several good scrubbings. We can only attribute this to the dirty “beds” on the nightmare train.

When we got on, we thought, hey its hot right now, but we’ve got this bottle of nice red wine to share as we begin our journey, we’ll hangout for a bit and then sleep the rest of the time. Instead, 6+ hours of being in the Italian sun and 2 or so hours of drinking games with Canadians left us dried up of our thirst and patience. After several grueling hours and somehow managing to fall asleep eventually. We awoke at 4 in the morning with splitting hangovers and an unquenchable thirst with no water in sight.

Desperate for a spot of water, I scoured the dark roller coaster night train for any sign of a place to acquire water by whatever means necessary. After two trips up and down the slightly spooky and seemingly endless cars, I eventually found someone who was just by happenstance accessing what appeared to be at one point a place to buy water, drinks, snacks, etc. The only thing he did have was a giant jug of water and a small cup… After refusing me the two gallon jug of cold,  refreshing, thirst quenching water, I had to settle with only downing one cup for myself and then bringing Kelly a full one for the remainder of purgatory… I mean the night train.

Not until an hour or two later at around 6 am did we finally stop into Salzburg for what seemed like 45 minutes (for no reason?) were we able to hop off the train and purchase two small water bottles with what remaining coins we had left. We would have bought the whole machine if we had enough money, but 3 euros only got us two small bottles. An Advil PM and a coma later, we finally arrived in Vienna, ready to spring off the train and hug and kiss and worship the solid ground beneath our feet….

A gloomy and rainy two mile walk to our hostel after we got off at a much too early stop on the Tram, and we were here. A&T Holiday Hostel. Exhausted from our odyssey into the twilight zone, we slept for hours trying to make up for the last 11 hours of our lives we wish we’d had back.

Here’s to a new day tomorrow!

Cameron and Kelly