A Very Lucky Girl

Our journey to Budapest started out relatively rocky. Keep in mind that we speak zero Italian. We arrived at the train station early (per usual) and scanned the board for our departure platform. Our first train was heading to Bologna, Italy where we would then board our night train. Underneath the platform listings we saw a running header that listed Firenze, Venezia and Bologna as places with cancelled trains (at least, that's what I thought it said...). We went straight to the customer service desk and took a number, wanting to confirm before properly panicking. I have never in my life been so happy to be wrong.  We located the platform and boarded our non-cancelled train at 8:20 PM with no issue. We were scheduled to arrive in Bologna at 10:35 PM with 22 minutes to catch our connecting train. However, our train from Rome ended up slowing down and we pulled into Bologna at 10:45 PM. We had 12 minutes to find our next platform. We bounded off the train and the race was o...

We took our final night trains from Germany to Denmark, and lemme tell ya, I was thrilled. We took a short train from Heidelberg to Frankfurt, then a longer one on to Hamburg where we would change again. We didn't have reservations for our train from Frankfurt to Hamburg so we figured we needed to sit in the second-class upright seats as opposed to the sleeping compartments. I found out with 45 minutes left on our 6 hour train from hell that we were wrong. We could have been sprawled in the sleeping compartments only one car back. Another fun fact: at one stop at least 5 teens were arrested off of our train and escorted onto the platform by security officers. Never a dull moment when traveling with a Eurail pass!  We eventually arrived in Copenhagen and made a few laps of the train station in search of an ATM where I tried not to cry at the exchange rate. After some searching, we located the bus that would drop us off in the vicinity of our hostel. Or not. Because all of the stops...

The journey from Paris to Brussels, Belgium was needlessly arduous. I KNOW there is a train that goes directly from Paris to Brussels, but the lady we made our reservations with obstinately disagreed and booked us on THREE different connections. A journey that should have taken 2 hours took 4. Astrid Loomans, another friend from my North Carolina days, mentioned we could probably stay with her family when we traveled to Belgium and the Loomans family was gracious enough to take Kylie and me in for the weekend. Astrid's older brother, Thomas, picked us up at the station. To say he looked different is an understatement. I did NOT recognize him in the slightest.  It was so strange to stay in a real house again! It was the only place I've stayed since being in Europe that reminded me of American homes. Kylie and I shared Astrid's room and bathroom and I giggled at Astrid's old Twilight series books. I couldn't resist opening her old St. David's yearbooks and remi...

I embarked upon my first train adventure last week. A family friend whom I had never met before conversed with me via email and invited me to spend time with her and her family in their Scottish town of North Berwick. Nat and I purchased tickets and successfully navigated the giant Waverly station in Edinburgh to find the little train shuttling passengers to the wee town.  Jana and her family call New York home, but are currently spending a year in North Berwick while her husband works on a new business. They have lived there before and are old hands at understanding Scottish brogue and knowing where to find fried chicken.  Nat and I arrived in North Berwick around 3:15 PM on Wednesday afternoon and followed our ears to the ocean immediately. Jana had told me to email her when and where we were ready to be picked up that evening, but I never found WiFi again after disembarking the train in Edinburgh. Nat and I wandered the beach for an hour, marveling at the foamy waves an...