Not a typical train ride...

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Hungarys flagPublished: December 15th 2008Europe » Hungary » Central Hungary » Budapest » Pest
December 15th 2008

Train.Train.
Train.

The corridor of the train.
"SaRaJEVOOOOO!"

Yelling "Sarajevo!" while running down the platforms of the Budapest train station looking for the Sarajevo train, was how our morning started off.

We had slept in that morning, and got to the train station 5 minutes before the train's shedualed departure. The train left once a day and if we missed it we would have no place to sleep. Nobody seemed to know where it was, and the signs were just as confusing. Finally at the back end of the train station on platform 13 we found a train we thought was going to Sarajevo. All sweaty and out of breath we got onto the train and started running down the corridor in a panic asking other passengers if they knew where the train was going.

"Sarajevo?"

"We hope so," replied the other passengers.

I opened a window and asked an employee on the platform if the train was headed to Sarajevo.

"Sarajevo, yes," he said. Relief.

We found the cabin that was on our tickets and there was another lady sitting in there with all her luggage. The cabin smelled like onions, and we couldn't possibly survive that for 13 hours.

So we found a cabin all to ourselves and the seats were also pulled out to make two beds. Perfect! Just as we were recovering from our frazzled state and realizing how stupid we must have looked (as well as vowing to stick to bus stations for the rest of the trip), a man walked by and said something to us in Hungarian. We stared at him with a blank look, and he left. Then, he came back again and said something to us again motioning to sit in the cabin, so we said yes.

My sister and I started talking and then the train pulled out of the station.

The guy in our cabin was quiet, in his mid 20's and looked relatively unassuming; he even helped us put our backpacks on the rack above our heads. However there was something weird about him - I noticed out of the corner of my eye him staring at me. I thought that I was being crazy and that he was probably staring out the window, but the feeling persisted.

After a while, the heat began to get to both me and my sister (there was no air-conditioning and the tempurate was in the high 30s, not to mention the window we could barely open) and we both began to get sleepy. We both lay down and tried to pass the time dreaming. I fell asleep for a little bit.

I felt a leg beside me and I opened my eyes to find this guy lying right beside me, staring at me. As he realizes I'm awake he looks away, but I still caught him staring at me. "How long has he been doing this? Why would anyone do this? Why is he so close to me? WTF?" were thoughts running through my head. I didn't know what to do so I just turned around.

Then his cell phone rang.

"What is love baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more. Dum Dum dum dum dum. Dum Dum dum dum dum." It just added to the creepy effect. He answered it and left the cabin.

My sister said he had been staring at me the whole time and that she was staring at him to make sure he didn't do anything. She didn't know what to do either.

He came back and sat down at the other end of the cabin. He left maybe 20 minutes later at Dumbovar station. We were pretty lucky that nothing happened. As I recounted the trip to others, I heard stories of sleeping gas being put in the cabin and the unassuming passengers being robbed of all their money and possessions. Our guy was just plain creepy. For the rest of the train ride we closed the door, lay down across all three seats and pretended to be asleep so that no one would come into the cabin. We're assholes, I know, but we just couldn't after that. We just kept shuddering every time we remembered what happened. Really... what was that?

Oh, I forgot to metion. As the train pulled out of Dumbovar station, where creepy dude got off, he spotted us looking out of the window and from where he was standing on the platform, blew us a kiss.











Marta
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