Ok let me just say, I’ve decided it’s cruel and unusual punishment for a train station to not post it's name ANYWHERE in it’s own station. I mean come on. We’ve been through quite possibly the most cortisol, endorphin, blood pumping traveling experience of our lives, we only have ONE connection left to achieve and we are home free, all to get off at a freezing cold station where no one will look at us, let alone talk to us, it’s quite literally SNOWING INSIDE THE BUILDING, and we are slapped in the face with a little panic of having gotten off too early or late and yet again deviated from our plan because of the lack of signage. Luckily, we were able to find a real nice and helpful girl who laughed with us in our comical, giggly, near panicked state, assuring us we were in fact in Munich and our train was on time and to depart in an hour and a half. Phew! We took the opportunity to walk around, scoping out all the food possibilities, selected one, and ate in a nice little area sheltered from the snow and warmed by the fragrance and heat of roasting chickens.
Our train arrived and while everyone anxiously awaited the doors open, in hopes of escaping the bitter chill of the snow, ha!, the train starts pulling away!!! We all kinda look around at each other, and using the only language we have in common, other than love I guess, express a little confusion and laugh in our mutual fear of being left out in the cold by the last train coming through the station for that night. Gratefully and to the comfort of all, it stopped after a minute, pulled back, and we were allowed on. This was a sleeper train and since we didn’t have reservations we just waited for everyone to find their seats at which point we were free to choose whichever cabin we wanted. I took a little journey through all of them and found a whole car nearly empty so Janise and I sat there, until the train was to split (that half was staying somewhere in Switzerland). We headed back up a few cars and I almost knocked a girl over as she emerged from her car in preparation to exit at the next station. Two sisters from Germany off to the Alps for a 7 day skiing trip. We stopped and talked and they offered us their cabin, which we graciously accepted, chatted a while, and they left. Our train sat in that station for quite some time. Time enough in fact that we saw them wandering around outside from platform to platform trying to find their next connection. Each time they walked by we all waved and laughed then carried on. Eventually, we saw the youngest wave at us with paper and pen in hand, running in our direction. We hopped up and, grabbing paper and pen ourselves, hurriedly exchanged email and facebook information. We’re pretty sure there was a miscommunication between the station and their train because not 5 minutes later we see them, a few others, and a conductor sprinting down the platform to our left as though they are all trying to wave down the train speeding past them. It stopped. It really did. I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what was going on. They got on and we took off in opposite directions. We made it to Gyor, Hungary and were excitedly greeted by an old friend of Janise’s from Seattle.
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