Strangers on a Train

I opted for the overnight train ride from Paris to Munich. It left at 8:20pm and arrived in Munich at 7am. My room had three bunk beds, and I was lucky that I only had one room-mate, as the other person never showed up. It was a small space, but once settled in, all was well. My room-mate’s name was “Holly” or something like that, and she was Austrian, spoke little English and that with a very strong accent that I couldn't understand. She had the top bunk. Holly wanted to go straight to sleep, and I was wide awake. I guess I am a night owl even in other time zones. So, I grabbed my laptop and a bottle of wine and headed for the food car.

It was crowded, and I was quickly excused because apparently you can’t bring your own wine into this car. It was clearly not as cool as the party car on the train to Chicago. So, I gathered up my stuff and went on a quest for a place to sit, have a glass of wine, and attempt to write. I figured there would probably be a place somewhere with normal train seats. So I went car by car, back to front, looking for such a magical space. Along the way, I came to a car that was almost empty, except a few bikes and a few pieces of random luggage. There were three boys sitting in there, chatting with British accents. Two of them were playing chess on a magnetic chess board. I stopped and asked them if they knew if there were normal seats on the train and they said they didn’t know; they didn’t even have seats at all. They told me to pull up a piece of luggage and have a seat with them if I wanted. They were already drinking wine. I felt a little like a dirty old lady, but I figured what harm could come from sitting on the floor and typing, minding my own business.

The thing is, though, that they made it hard… if not impossible, for me to mind my own business. They were so funny. They had just come off three weeks of grape picking in France. They were paid almost no Euro, however they each had a suitcase full of wine. Will work for wine, was their motto, apparently. They were heading to Croatia. Anyway, to make a long story short, the group grew to about 10 people because of the heated game of chess that was taking place, right there on the floor. Bets were made, and it was almost as if they were playing poker or something. The rest of us decided to play a card game. They introduced me to a game called “Presidential” and as they were explaining it, I exclaimed “Oh I know this game.. Only in America, we call it ‘Asshole’!” and they laughed and said that is what they call it, too… but they didn’t want to offend me. Such is the life of the oldest person in the luggage car full of stow-aways. So, we played Asshole. I retired at about 2am, having grown tired of being the Asshole for too long:)

And that is the end of my train-trip-to-Munich story.