Choo CHoo

I tell of a harrowing tale.  One of twisted bed positions and cramped necks. One of injured arms and wet bathrooms.

It is the tale of taking the Eurorail through Europe!  

The convenient thing about the continent is its awesome train system, where you can go from Geneva to Paris in just 4 hours.  Where there are trains at almost all hours of the day so if you should choose to leave at 4 in the morning or 10 at night, you can! (California public transportation, take notes)  Where you can meet crazy people, cool people, drunk people, mean people, smelly people, cute people, where you can actually meet people! (as opposed to being trapped in your car all by your lonesome.)

Sheila, Sepehr and I purchased Eurorail passes which granted us five traveling days to four different neighboring countries.  We utilized those passes to the extreme, going from Switzerland to France to Germany to Austria and then back to Switzerland.  All these days of traveling left us frazzled and drained but we still kept a smile up.

That is, until one of the nights, we decided to head to Austria on a night train.  I've had romantic visions of the night train where young attractive strangers are all huddled together in small quarters, sharing stories of their travels and becoming life long friends.  I envisioned a cozy little sanctuary where I would write in my journal, stare out at the beautiful night hills whizzing by...

well, this wasn't exactly what I had planned.  

Six of us were squeezed into this small itty bitty  cubicle with all our luggage.  We tried storing our luggage everywhere; in the little gap in the ceiling, in the middle of the cubicle, at the foot of our beds.  Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of sleep that night.  And I tell ya, I wasn't kept awake by a mysterious Austrian boy whispering sweet nothings into my ear all night. I was more kept awake by my own brain exploding from thinking, "wow...I am really uncomfortable in here."  I would doze off into little fits of sleep only to awake and find myself in the same cramped situation, only a little more cramped.  I thought my legs were going to fall off and it probably would have but our cubicle wouldn't have anywhere to store it.  Then what would I have done, thrown it overboard? Leg overboard? I don't think so.

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Sleeping on the day train was a WHOLE LOT more comfortable.  And Sheila and I did a lot of that. LOL. At least the book I was reading is opened. I think Sheila barely cracked open hers throughout most of our journey. Oh Sheila, learn to love reading!

And so, our journey has now come to an end.  This is our last stop and our final destination. Until next time!