TRAIN FROM VENICE TO VIENNA

Last night and today the whole day were the most challenging part of of my trip till now. There was a time when I almost thought that I should go directly to Frankfurt, stay in a hotel for next 2 days and catch a flight back to India. But now that I am back in the train from Vienna to Prague safely with all my belongings, I think it was not such a bad experience after all.

Last night I boarded the train from Venice station and it was going to be a 12 hour long overnight journey. I had paid for the cheapest fare and was not sure if there would a bed or just a seat like in planes. Atleast in India even cheap sleeper classes have full beds. Anyways it was a six seater coach and the whole train was full so no room to stretch. In my cabin there was an Italian lady, a German young couple and two American men. I chatted quite a bit with the American men. Their stop was 4 hour away and the young couple wee to accompany me till Vienna. As soon as the Italian lady got down after an hour, I stretched on 2 seats and slept.

I could manage to get some sleep amidst the constant chattering of the two men and the constant kissing of the young couple. Just then the ticket checker came and I showed my ticket eager to go back to sleep but that was just the beginning of the trauma. The cabin somehow felt cold. I overheard people saying that heating had broken down in this coach. My toes were freezing but I was tired and kept taking small naps. Just then someone pulled my shawl and put torch light on my face. I was annoyed and my neighbors told me it was the Police. That was not it, police came on more time and asked for my passport and ticket checker two more times. I felt like some criminal being deported to some place. The chill was becoming unbearable.

Just then someone came and switched on all the lights and asked us to move to the next cabin as this was being disconnected. (By the way I am in this train to Prague and the view of suburban Vienna is just so beautiful just like Switzerland. There are even woods and rivers and its lovely, serene and untouched. And there is an couple next to me; the man is dictating and woman is writing the travel log, unlike me typing alone :( ) So going back to the last night, we collected our things and in half sleep walked to the next cabin which was all full. So we stood on the corridor till the next station at about 2 am in the night. I asked the girl infront of me to move to the next coach and see if there was space there. She said there was only this coach and soon we'll move to a new one. So I stood like that for half an hour and then moved to the new coach. When I got down to move I saw snow on the ground! No wonder it was so freezing. I did not know it was that cold and we were without heat.

The new coach was all empty and and I entered a cabin , the girl followed me asking if she could come in too. I said yes of course. She pulled the two seats facing each other together and they became a bed. I did not know this! I had been sleeping crouched on two adjacent seats all this while and also not giving space to the young couple who was in my cabin earlier, not that they needed much space anyways. They were already on top of one another, now one can imagine my trauma even more clearly. So in my new cabin this girl and me slept next to each other, it was warm and had some good company and I slept soundly till morning 7am when we were woken up by standing passengers who wanted to sit. I could the scene outside the window. It was a beautiful landscape all covered with white snow. It reminded me of Switzerland, it was so lovely and pristine.