The Dreaded Journey...but not really

That will never happen again, but it did need to happen. 31 hours. 4 trains, 1 plane. One disheveled American teetering and tottering through the sleeping and restaurant cars trying to find a home. The world of European Rail is massive and I was surprisingly so small within those vehicles.

Stockholm to Copenhagen was to be my testing leg; the leg of patience in which I had to just sit and wait and look outside. But that was fine; I had already fueled up on enough soccer talk to make up for the days past. I met a guy from Manchester, England named David. I had pondered us discussing football earlier in our acquaintance since we had been together in Stockholm for 2 days. But, finally, at our last breakfast there, about 20 minutes of debate spilled out over the ensuing mayhem. We discussed the England v. USA match of course, both agreeing it would be close, but each of us rooting for our sides. This was what I wanted; I hadn’t really found the true support, rather calculated and well-thought out opposition to national teams. David was proving my hypothesis with a cool demeanor; people do care about their teams. Remember when I said Rooney’s causing the stock market crash was exaggerated? Apparently it wouldn’t be so absurd to England; still pretty absurb, but not completely out of the question.

In any case, the first leg was a leg where I pondered what I accomplished while looking at the sea of yellow of flowers give me such a fond farewell to such a beautiful region. I was really anxious though; I have to say, one thing I dreaded about the train travel was the transfer waits. Hours with nothing to do; sure I would explore, but there’s only so much I can do, and I walk and absorb fast. But it was fine, cause next came the best experience: the individual sleeper car cabin.

It was a huge room, like a hotel, with its own key card, its own shower, with a bed. I was in awe; it was a jungle gym apparatus that spilled out into luxury. Inherently, this turned out to be very counterproductive; I slept much less than I should have. I predicted a miserable state, but a simple breakfast of bread made me feel better (did I mention how horrible vegetarianism is for carbohydrate consumption here?). In retrospect, so did the prospect of my next leg.

Brussels to London. It seemed like a crossover into another realm, because the UK is still part of the EU, but exercises American standard security. I had to diagram my life story over the next 2 months to the security officer at the Eurostar booth in Brussels. Speaking the same language as someone has its benefits and its negatives; though it was nice to finally say words after so long, the interrogative style was not my choice for resuming my conversational skills. However, I was pleasantly surprised on the train.

Two women. One of my generation, one of the generation of wisdom. One was city-hopping for short term work with merely a bundle of resumes, while the other was travelling to trace her family history for a book. One was French, one Australian. Despite the vast differences, they both were so damn interesting. It was a fun back and forth listening to Beryl (the Older Australian woman)’s stories of criminal family members in Ireland, and discussing the criteria for good employees with Valentine (the Younger French girl). As I left the train, Valentine and I had gained such a bond in just one hour that we decided to hang around each other for at least 10 minutes more. We parted with promises to keep in touch, one that I intend to keep.

For a while on this journey, I thought of losing faith in Europe’s trains. But, within this trip, I regained the vision of simple beauty. Trains here are so big, but are so small. You are forced into a set of four seats with two facing the other two; I think this was brilliant on the part of European train builders. It makes you have to get to know fellow humans whom you wouldn’t otherwise. Most of the time, this gives you faith and stories to be proud of. Just 1 hour of conversation in such a simple place did the same for me.

God bless the European Railways.