Previously on Lenkas’s diary: I was about to leave Warsaw to continue my trip.
It was early (but not too early) in the morning when we checked out of the hotel and went to the Warszawa Centralna to catch the packed train. Good thing I had reserved my seat. But this meant that I could not sit with my friend. In the train, surrounded by strangers, I had to improvise – I listened to music and tried to ignore everyone.
Which is not that easy, when a very talkative elderly Polish lady is sat opposite you. Just to mention, while I’d love to learn Polish and I’m working on it (as much as my Duolingo allows it), I do not speak it just yet. But because it is so similar to Slovak, I had a really good chance to understand it. And she was precious. She tried to communicate so badly that I couldn’t just ignore her. Soon after I knew the purpose of her journey (for all of you nosy ones, she was going to visit her daughter in Vienna), her life story (which I have forgotten – it’s been 3 years) and I’m sure more, but only in Polish. Interestingly enough, we had the same route, as I had to go to Vienna as well. And later, even a talkative Czech lady joined us, so we had a multilingual conversation, or at least we tried.
Just as much as I tried to help the Polish lady in Břeclav where we had to change the train. unfortunately, I failed and lost her.
This next train was also packed and this time, I didn’t have any reservation, but it was only an hour. In the end, I was glad because I got a chance to meet fellow Interrailers from Spain, though they weren’t participants of the Discover EU project. But we stroke up a conversation. Mind you, I did speak Spanish even then but I was too shy to use it, so we talked in English. I told them about my trip to Poland and my next journey to Italy, which amazed them, such a young girl travelling to Italy by herself! (I was ashamed to admit my mom was waiting for me in Vienna because my dad wouldn’t let me go alone, lol.) And then we had nothing else to add but definitely not to practise my Spanish, I may have possibly been overhearing some bits of their conversations. They were about me and about how brave I was to go by myself (ehh, yeahh). What an ego boost though. And then, another friend of theirs came and they told her, in Spanish, and she was like “Wow, really? That’s so cool!” to which they responded that I didn’t speak Spanish. That was my time to shine because finally, I revealed my secret and told them in Spanish that I did. The look on their faces! (Which, in all honesty, I don’t remember exactly (read – at all), because I don’t remember faces, but I do remember it being really funny.) Certainly the highlight of the ride.
But no, we’re not done yet because I’m about to get on a night train to Bologna with my mom. I’d never been on a night train before and I had no idea what to expect. Now I know that if you’re not willing to pay extra for a better seat, not much.
There were 6 seats in the compartment, and all taken. It was the peak of summer and quite hot. As we were about to go to sleep, we made our seats into tiny little beds that maybe a 10-year-old child could comfortably sleep in and tried to get some sleep. It was really hot in there and I kept waking up throughout the night, probably at every single station. But there was an odd incident, in the middle of the night, maybe at 3 am when we were at the Austrian-Italian borders.
My mom and I were up, looking out of the window. We saw some people who couldn’t bear it inside and went for a little walk at the platform to light a cigarette. When suddenly, the train moved. Those people couldn’t believe their eyes. Most likely, they had most of their baggage in the train that was just leaving without them. But I mean, their problem, right? I was safely inside. But then, maybe after 2 kilometres, we started reversing to get them! Good for them and it actually played into our hands too, because we were delayed for 2 hours, so we arrived in Bologna at 7 am instead of 5 am. I don’t know about you, but I’ve no clue what to do in Italy at that time.
Lesson learnt: know when your train leaves the station when you want to go to get some fresh air.
But I must say I was glad to leave the train for the next day because this was a lot. And what did I do next? Well…
