I am spoiled…um, hold on…let me rephrase that before I throw in the full stop: I have been spoiled by the ease of travel in Japan. Oh sure there was a time in my youth when the getting there was as interesting as the being there (wherever there was). But alas I have become accustomed to being within a short walking distance of a metro station, no matter where I am in Tokyo. I am used to not having to wait more than three minutes upon reaching the platform. I am used to being able to book and reserve a seat on express trains (trains that are fast, clean and comfortable) as little as ten minutes before a train leaves and in some cases as little as five minutes before a train leaves. I am used to being able to book and reserve, with ease, seats on shinkansen, the bullet trains; trains that go 300 km/h. I am used to these trains being quiet, comfortable and clean as well as having bathrooms that work and food service from carts that go up the aisle at regular intervals. I have been spoiled by the ease of travel in Japan.
I have also grown accustomed to the peculiar habit of ticketing agents never telling me, “no.” A statement like, “I want to go from point A to point B, on this day, in a non-smoking car, and leave at this time” is nearly always met with a few seconds pause as info is typed into computers, with the next response being, “that will be x amount.” OK, yes if you are going to go somewhere on a holiday or during Golden Week, you should book ahead. But even in those situations, it’s not like you are going to be told “No.” Oh you might have to go at a later time. And when I say a later time, I mean the next train which will leave 15-30 minutes after the one you wanted. I have been spoiled by the ease of travel in Japan.
Now I realize such high standards of service and timeliness in a train service is incomprehensible to those of you living in America without a functioning train network for passengers. But Europe (by whatever definition you use for that geo-political entity) has a long standing rail service. Surely it is just as fast and efficient as the Japanese rail system…surely.
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Our trip to Europe came together rather quickly. Yes we had put the initial pieces in place more than a year ago. But the opportunity to go this summer surprised us. And on those rare occasions that Pam has decided to do something on a whim, I have tried to encourage that. A little whim in life is a good thing after all. We just barely ordered our Eurorail passes in time. But we did not get them in time to book and reserve seats for the individual trips…apparently Europe with its centuries and millennia of history has not fully embraced the electronic age. Did you know fax machines still exist? I thought they went out with VCR’s.
So we landed in Milan around 6 pm without a single train reservation. I had been able to pull up the train numbers and departure times that would be ideal for us. Again, I live in Japan. The ever polite Japanese behind the green ticketing windows never say “no.” I have train numbers. I have departure times. What’s there to say “no” to?
We took the Airport Express Bus (Man, I hate buses!!!) to the Milano Centrale train station. For the record, the Milano/Malpensa Express Bus is as poorly named as the Wiki-Wiki buses at the Honolulu Airport. For both, walking is faster. We finally arrived at the station; quickly found the ticketing area; and waited in line for a not unreasonable amount of time.
We wowed our female ticketing agent with our abilities to butcher the Italian language, despite which, she graciously helped us. She quickly stamped and officially activated our Eurorail passes. We told her we wanted to go to Venice on the night train, and I showed her the train number. I knew that this train left at 11 pm; I knew that this train had a long lay over in Bologna, which seemed odd to me, but it never registered with me that we would actually have to get off and change trains. The nice lady punched in the number I gave her, and quickly said, in a startling loud and authoritative voice, “Bologna?! Why you go Bologna?! NO! You go Venice in the morning. You stay here tonight. I give you hotel.” There is only one response to such a slew of unexpected info, “ok.” And after a long pause, “Grazie.” She printed out our tickets, took some money for the reservation fee, wrote down the name of the hotel we were to go to and then gave us directions that included the information, “You go to the big rue. You turn right.” I immediately had an image of walking two blocks in the graffiti filled litter box that is central Milan, finding a giant sculpture of the A. A. Milne inspired, “Roo.” (What? Milne was European, yes? It could happen!)
We found the hotel without any sightings of poo(h)…although clearly there had been a urine festival in the streets earlier in the day. We caught our train the next morning without difficulty, thoroughly enjoying the roominess of our first class seats for the two hours it took us to get to Venice.
One might think I would learn a lesson from my experience with my first European ticketing agent. No such luck.
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On the second morning in Venice I arose at 5:30am, to go to the station and book our next train. Again, I went with train numbers and times in hand. I wanted to be on the night train to Paris the following evening.
In Japan, night trains are somewhat hard to find because the trains go so darn fast, you can go the length of the island in a day. I wanted to check “night train in a berth” off of my “to do” list.
I greeted my friendly ticketing agent with slightly less butchered Italian before showing him our passes and then the train number for the following evening. He seemed genuinely concerned when he told me the first class berths were all filled. The only thing remaining berths were six person couchettes…berths with six beds in a roughly eight by eight foot space…hmmm, cozy. He was less adamant than the lady in Milan, but suggested I take the morning train the following morning, which would mean nearly 12 hours on the train during the day. I assured him the second class six-person berth would be fine. Tickets were booked, money exchanged for the reservation, and I had time to find a café latte before spending some quality time with my camera on a sleepy morning in Venice.
Now, maybe if I hadn’t spent 12 hours on a plane a mere two days before, I would have been more inclined to completely change our plans. But I wasn’t. And this sounds like a much better excuse for a stupid decision than I the fact that I was just too dumb and stubborn to change our plans.
In my youth, when I loved the getting there, the second class six-person berth would have made for a great and thrilling memory and story. I am no longer in my youth. When sleeping, I require a certain degree of cleanliness – I would subsequently include the smell of cleanliness; and air that moves, ideally chilled air.
Things started out well enough. We had a lovely last day in Venice, going out to the island of Murano where the famous Venetian glass foundries are. We made it back in time to pick up sandwiches from our favorite bakery, before finding a playground in a park close to the train station to let Sachan play a bit. We picked up our bags from the storage area, got on the train and settled in on one side of our berth. We left a little late, but there were still only the three of us. At the first station on the mainland we were joined by a young man with more bags that the three of us combined. He spoke French and Italian, and was clearly an expert when it came to riding the sleepers.At the next stop we picked up a Chinese lady in her twenties who only spoke Chinese and Italian.
Theoretically, the berth had AC. Air that had been slightly de-warmed could be experienced if you held your hand over the vent. Calling that AC is a stretch in any language. And with five warm bodies in the berth the pretend AC just wasn’t cutting it. Exhaustion can be your friend in these types of situations. We managed to get our beds set up and made before pretending to sleep. At some point in the night the train stopped and we were joined by another gentleman who I think spoke some Italian.
When we got off the train in Paris, Pam was quick to announce, “Well! We aren’t doing THAT again!” True, very true. On the bright side, we were in Paris, “night train in berth” was knocked off the list, and, well, we had avoided Bologna.
