Passengers slowly filled up the train replacement and we eventually departed. The bus wound through rural Bulgarian villages and farmlands now fully soaked in lazy sunlight. Between the villages, the road was mostly empty and our only companions were the thickets of nameless bushes growing on the sides and the empty fields that extended as far as the eye could see. Taking in the bucolic scenery, I munched on the bread that I had bought with the 20 lev note. After eating something, at least I wasn’t dizzy anymore and could think clearly. Around noon, the bus pulled into a small town and dropped the passengers off at an old station. The passengers crossed the tracks to board the run-down, two-car train whose decaying exteriors were covered with graffiti and dust. The dry air lifted the dust off the crumbling pavements dotted with small patches of weeds as everyone slowly marched to the train. The constant metallic hum from the rusted engine made the air feel even drier. The passengers slowly took their places in the empty train.
The train eventually pulled out of the station and went through a similar stretch of land dominated by endless open fields. As the sunlight flooded the dusty cabins, I felt warm enough to shed some layers for the first time that day. The bitter chill from that morning felt like ages ago. Relaxed and no longer lightheaded, I drifted into planning mode once again. The first thing I needed to do was to come up with a contingency plan in case I missed the connecting train from Bucharest to Budapest. Missing the connection was a real possibility, and I needed to waste as little time as possible in case it happened. There were so many options, each equally unlikely because of the overly tight transfer window. But I managed to find one feasible route: camp out in Bucharest until 9:00PM to board a night train that would arrive in Szolnok by 11:30AM the following day. Then I would spend the entire afternoon to go to Vienna where I would board a twelve-hour long night train to Aachen. From there, I would go through Brussels the following morning to arrive at London around noon. It was a nonstop thirty-five-hour trip that would bring me to London by October 26th, which would allow me to travel to Dublin on October 27th, and fly out to Seattle on October 28th. But my preference was actually to make my way to Budapest right away instead of camping out at Bucharest, because I would rather spend the limited time I had on the road than sit around at a station.
The train pulled into Ruse at around 1:40PM. The next train to Bucharest was supposed to depart at 2:15PM but wasn’t at the platform yet. The empty station had impressive architecture with imposing arches and chandeliers, but there was nothing much to explore nearby, except for a crumbling underpass with shuttered shops. I bought some more water from a vending machine but still had plenty of money left from the 20 lev that the lady from the Gorna-bound train gave me. Somehow it felt wrong to randomly splurge it on stuff, not that there were any places to spend it near the station. So I just went back to the platform and waited for the Bucharest train, along with a few other passengers. After a while, a modern two-car train pulled into the platform and everyone got on board right on time. The train stopped for a while at the Bulgarian side of the border for passport control and began moving again at around 3:00PM. The wait felt like an eternity. The train was supposed to arrive at Bucharest by 5:15PM, and the night train to Budapest was leaving at 6:15PM. Having lost nearly an hour at the border, my chance of making the connection began to look rather slim. I decided to not pull the trigger on the seat reservation on the Budapest-bound train just yet and instead see what kind of time the train was making. The train slowly crossed the steel bridge over the Danube. The massive waterway was tinted green and looked almost stationary because of how wide it was.
On the Romanian side, the train continued to go through the sprawling countryside of pastures and farmhouses. The serene landscape seemed rather confused about why I was in such a hurry and whispered that it wouldn’t be too terrible to slow down or even let go. It told me that whether I made the connecting train to Budapest didn’t really matter. But I wasn’t ready to listen, or rather, I didn’t want to listen. My eyes didn’t see the tranquil countryside at all. All I managed to see through the window was a lump of earth being relegated to the rear of the train, a cold and mathematical evidence of the distance being traveled every second. Whatever romance that I’d once imagined in long-distance travel had no place in this calculated race against time. The train moved slowly, occasionally stopping for some time in the middle of nowhere. It was so slow that at times it felt like I was riding on a tram in a crowded city, not a train in the countryside. To add to my impatience, the train took a long detour rather than going straight from Ruse to Bucharest. As the evening approached, the sky gradually lost its daylight and my heart grew heavier.
At around 5:40PM, my eyes were fixed on the map as the train closed in on Bucharest from its long detour. From the pace of the train, it was still uncertain whether I was going to make the connection. It looked like I was going to arrive just as the Budapest train was departing. Was that enough? Could I make a run for the right platform and hop on the train as it was leaving? It sounded like a gamble but I was willing to try. But the seat reservation was around $20 and I didn’t want to let it go to waste. So I kept the ticket reservation page open on my phone with all my credit card details filled in. The plan was to press the check out button if the train somehow arrived before the connecting train departed. If the train arrived late, I would just not buy the ticket and save the fee.
As I nervously sat with my phone in one hand, the rural landscape disappeared from the window and the busy downtown Bucharest came into view. Instead of houses, there were medium-rise buildings, and the traffic on the streets got much heavier. The train slowed down and cruised along the city traffic. When we began pulling into Bucharest North station, it was miraculously only 6:10PM and I still had ten minutes before the Budapest train would depart. With the platforms slowly coming into view, I concluded that I just might make it and pushed the check out button to reserve the seat. But it wasn’t that easy. The seat reservation had been closed, and my unwillingness to part with $20 was putting the entire plan at risk. The train doors opened. I grabbed my backpack and the bag of food and got out.
I started running. Where to go wasn’t clear, but it was better than standing still. I needed to find some kind of ticket office or a departure board. Dusk was already falling around the massive station. It was disorienting. Every little thing you normally find in a new country became extra confusing and even unnerving as I ran without destination in the crowded concourse. My senses were bewildered by the new smell of air, the new writing system, the new sound of the language, and mostly by the falling darkness and the uncertainty it represented. Every sentence in the unknown language uttered by the loudspeaker sounded like the last boarding call for the Budapest train whose platform I didn’t even know and whose ticket I didn’t even hold. In the station hall, above the sea of shops whose signs I didn’t recognize, there was a large departure board showing dozens of trains and their platforms. However, the board was of no use because everything appeared as a blur in my rush. I instinctively ran toward what appeared to be an information desk. The only open window was occupied by another traveler. I waited and waited and, as soon as the window became free, went up to the window and slid my phone underneath. “Where can I buy the ticket for this Budapest train at 6:15PM?” I desperately asked. The clerk glanced at the phone and told me to go to the ticket office, pointing at the nearby sign with a picture that looked like a ticket.
I rushed to the ticket office area lined with dozens of automated ticketing machines. Since all the windows were busy, I anxiously went up to a ticketing machine and tried to find the train to Budapest. But everything was in Romanian and I had no clue how to change the language. Not that it mattered–composure had long since gone and I was in no state to calmly reason about things. To add to my confusion, a man kept talking to me in a foreign language as I tried to figure out how the machine worked. I gave up and went up to a ticket office window which was free by this time. I showed the clerk behind the window the train number on my phone and asked where I could buy the ticket for the train. She calmly replied, “Platform 9.” “Can I buy a ticket here?” I asked trying not to sound as frantic as I felt. She repeated, “You need to go to platform 9.” “Can I buy the ticket on the train?” “Yes,” the clerk finally nodded, pointing in the direction of the platform. I thanked the clerk and sprinted to the platform.
It was 6:20PM, already five minutes past the scheduled departure. But I could see that the train was still in the platform. There was nobody getting on or off anymore, and the train looked like it was close to departing. I ran toward a crew member that was standing alone on the platform and asked urgently, “Hi, I don’t have a reservation. Can I buy a ticket onboard?” The crew member checked his list and asked whether I wanted a second-class berth, and I said yes. “You can board the car number five. I’ll come to you later.” “So there is a seat?” “Yes,” he said. I ran along the empty platform toward my train car and hopped on. Practically as soon as I went into the corridor, a whistle blew and the train jolted into a forward motion.
On the train car, there was a cabin with an empty berth at the end of the hallway. I dropped my backpack there and sat by the window to catch my breath. Bucharest, or what little I had known of it, was very slowly fading behind the windows. Across from my seat, an old lady was sitting and unpacking her bag. She calmly stared as I haphazardly tried to organize my belongings while still slightly out of breath. “Speak English?” She asked in a dubious voice. “Yes,” I answered and we started talking. Her name was Anastasia, a Russian-Hungarian lady who was now living in Romania. She was a retired director of cinema and was headed to Szolnok in Hungary to attend her son’s directorial debut of a Shakespearean play. When I told her that I was headed to Budapest and that I was sort of in a rush to reach Dublin, she exclaimed, “Budapest, what a beautiful place. Such architecture! Such history! You must see it.” Then she became genuinely shocked that I wasn’t going to spend even a day there. To appease her consternation, I had to explain that I was actually moving from Sydney to Seattle and was trying to get to Dublin in the four weeks I could take off from work. Somehow she seemed to understand the absurd premise of the whole undertaking. She just observed, “So you’re a Korean from Australia now moving to the US,” and concluded that, “Such is the world we live in.”
Pretty soon, the view outside the window became completely shrouded in darkness and a Romanian dude joined the cabin. He was headed to his village in the western part of Romania and became pretty interested in how I ended up in Romania, and what I was doing there. We had almost zero overlap in languages so Anastasia explained to him in Romanian the whole thing about my trip to Dublin. The dude then started showing me pictures of all the places I could visit in Romania, as if to convince me to stay awhile and check out his beautiful country. I didn’t understand what he was saying but there was no need, as the pictures spoke for themselves. I kind of wished that I had more time to visit at least some of those places. Anastasia added, “Most of the interesting things in Romania are outside Bucharest.” They pointed out the window and tried their best to show me interesting places like a cross on top of the mountain, or the areas that were bombed during the war to halt the oil production. But it was too dark to make out anything through the window and all I could see was the reflection of the cabin.
When the Romanian dude got glued to his phone to watch a football match, the conversation randomly moved on to Anastasia’s experience as a cinema director. Everything that she described–casting actors, writing plays, making sure that everyone is happy and working together–sounded like situations so distinct from the ones I faced day-to-day. Not only was there a whole world outside my bubble, but real people also lived in that world, with their own perspectives and problems. Noticing that our companion was lost in the football match, she began talking about how her husband was crazy about football too. She described how they fought all the time because they were total opposites but still loved each other. “Love is about conflict,” she arrived at a puzzling conclusion and asked, “Have you ever been in love?” I wasn’t certain that I had experienced love as she described so I replied, “I’m not sure.” And a total shock ensued, and she kept asking in astonishment, “Love. Do you mean you have not been in love?” as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. I was just not sure.
When the soccer match was over, the Romanian dude proudly showed me more pictures of the natural and architectural jewels of his country and pictures of his village. He happened to show his home gym setup and boasted that he could bench press over 100kg (220lb). I told him, “Wow, you’re quite strong then,” and he replied something in Romanian and pointed to his stomach with an exuberant laugh. “He means that he eats and drinks a lot,” with a slight shake of her head, Anastasia translated the self-deprecating joke of her countryman. After showcasing all the pictures, the dude started giving me a long lecture about how to make a brandy or a wine. I didn’t understand a word, but it could be summarized roughly as a three-step process: Gather fruit, put it in a barrel, and leave them until there is juice. Not exactly rocket science and a useful tip in case I ever end up in a Romanian village. It was getting kind of late, so everyone made their beds and went to sleep. Anastasia told me that we would be woken up in the morning for the passport control as Romania wasn’t a part of the Schengen Area.
Around 6:00AM the next morning, the train stopped at the Hungarian border and officers went around the train and collected the passports. Looking at the darkness outside the window and breathing in the chilly morning air, I thought about what I was to do after getting to Budapest. Hilariously, I had no idea about where to go next. I was going to figure that out last night but didn’t get around to it because I was talking to the Romanian dude and Anastasia. So, instead of going back to sleep, I started figuring out what my next move should be. I decided to break down the problem and figure out how to get to London first. It was already the morning of October 25th. I needed to be in London by the 26th so that I could travel to Dublin on 27th and fly out to Seattle on the 28th. But none of the options seemed to fit this unrealistic timeframe. Soon the Hungarian officers returned our passports and Anastasia thanked them, “Koszonom,” and exchanged a few words with them in Hungarian. I felt like also saying “Koszonom,” but kind of got shy at my first attempt at speaking Hungarian, so all I said was “Thank you.” As the train glided through the Hungarian countryside, the dawn gradually revealed the misty fog and the cloudy sky above.
As the daylight slowly broke, I sort of came up with a plan that would get me to Paris by the next morning. At around noon, I could hop on a train from Budapest and arrive in Vienna by 2:30PM. There, I could ride another train all day and arrive in Zurich by 11:00PM. From Zurich, I had to do some train hopping all night to go through Basel, Delemont, Meroux, and eventually get to Belfort-Montbeliard station where I would catch a TGV train and arrive in Paris by 9:00AM on the following day. After all that, getting to London was going to be straightforward because the Eurostar was running regularly. If all went according to the plan, I would arrive in London by the 26th. As always, the transfer window was rather unrealistic. The trains were often less than half an hour apart, and I doubted that such short windows would be sufficient. The all-night train hopping also meant I wouldn’t be able to sleep or rest, but that sounded like less of a problem–at least that was within my control, unlike the train schedule. Anyway, I decided to take the leap of faith and reserved seats for those trains except for Eurostar. Since the Eurostar ticket was kind of expensive, I was going to hold off and see how the trip would turn out first.
The train slowly arrived at Szolnok, the last stop before Budapest. Anastasia said, “Good luck and enjoy Budapest,” and got off the train. I spared her my sacrilegious plan of only spending three hours in the marvelous city of Budapest. The body and mind were tired and the upcoming plan was flimsy at best, but I was excited that I might stand a chance of getting to Paris by the following morning. The end was almost in sight. The sky progressively cleared up as the fog thinned out and eventually evaporated. The train marched through the clear and crisp autumn morning and finally came to a complete stop at a platform. Just like that, the thirty-seven-hour trip from Istanbul to Budapest was over. I had barely slept and all I had to eat for the past two days was some bread and cookies, but I had never been more awake.