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europe places to go reminisce stories to tell

The time I missed a train

on thursdays i try to do a little travel throwback, emphasis on the story from one photo

2006 – photo taken on my first DSLR – canon rebel

i told my parents that i thought it would be fun to visit my brother in budapest for christmas. yes, i told my poor parents that i’d miss christmas a second time to join my brother who was also missing christmas. instead of them being bummed, they decided to join me. i hadn’t traveled with my parents since i was a kid so it was definitely an interesting experience! we thought we’d make more of a trip out of it than just visiting my brother and we planned on going to several countries.

well into our journey together, i needed some space from my parents so instead of staying in the same hotel as them, i decided to find a hostel while in poland. i found a really fun hostel and met some awesome people from around the globe. after a couple days in poland, we had planned on going to slovakia and then back to hungary to leave for home. my parents and i were going to meet at the train station in the morning and head out.

but i didn’t wake up.

the hostel owner was supposed to wake me. i didn’t have an alarm clock or a phone. they were supposed to wake me up but they forgot. so i slept. i woke up minutes before the train was supposed to leave. at first i freaked out a little. i didn’t know what to do, my parents didn’t have a phone, i didn’t have a phone and they were probably wondering where i was and assuming i was dead like parents do.

so i did my best and emailed them not knowing when they’d be able to check. things like this make me wonder what we ever did before smart phones…

then i looked up train times for overnight trains going to budapest so i wouldn’t miss my flight too and enjoyed one extra day in poland. that’s the night i snapped this photo. i hung out with a new friendĀ (who isĀ still a facebook friend after all these years) all day and then wandered around by myself that night. i don’t know what this statue is all about, i don’t remember even reading the plaque, but the weather was brisk and my cheeks were red, and i was left behind in poland an extra day and making the best of it.

moral of the story: don’t get left behind in a country…but if you do…live it up.

One reply on “The time I missed a train”

Well, here is the other side of the story. I anxiously hung out at the doorway of the train waiting to grab her bags and was pretty annoyed because she always makes it “just in time.” All of a sudden…toot, toot and the train pulls out. At that point, what could we do. I didn’t think she was dead, I just figured she was late as usual. So we are zipping along in the train and I notice that the names of the cities we were passing did not seem correct. Asked the conductor, and sure enough, we were actually headed to Czech Rebublic, and not Slovakia. Oops…we were on the wrong train! The conductor seemed quite worried, but we just got out at the station on the border, waited an hour or so and then got on a train headed in the right direction. We stayed in a gorgeous hotel in Bratislava, a former embassy, and had a great day exploring the city. But really, all you need in Bratislava is one day, unless you are Tyler, who thinks it is a great town to party in. Did get the email from Danielle that night and she assured us that she would make it back to Budapest to catch the plane home. In fact, she made it there hours before we did. Ironically, when we went to the airport the next day we barely made it on to the plane because the check in line was really long! Sometime two hours ahead isn’t long enough!

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