Because the Night...

…belongs to sleepers. I am sitting in the night train to Zurich. When I realized I could only buy a regular seat online I called in to add a reservation for a sleeper car. The person warned me that the cheaper “bed is a massage table” kinda compartments had been sold out and it would be very expensive to get a “real” bed. But 32 Euros? Anybody who has traveled Amtrak where you pay hundreds of dollars for the same comfort will agree that it is a bargain, especially considering I will wake up a lot fresher tomorrow morning instead of uncomfortably slouched into a regular seat.

This morning started out nice again with the same good breakfast. I had to hurry a bit as I was running late. But our session yesterday had gone well, and there weren’t too many questions left over to discuss. The manager of the team arrived at 11 from Ljubljana and we went out for a nice two hour lunch. The restaurant was good, but I was confused a bit why they asked us what we wanted. Even though we had ordered different items we all got the same food, until I realized that that was just the appetizer – a huge plate, easily to be confused with a main dish.

Since cherry was in season, everything was served with it, including the fish I had ordered. They brought it out – the whole fish. It is not so comfortable eating when dead eyes look at you saying “what the hell are you doing”… I was too full for dessert, but most of the others went for it. Anything they ordered was served with…cherries.

The afternoon I spent some more time explaining things, but we really had dragged it out and by 4pm we were done. I had to wait until 5:30 so we could all attend the weekly conference call with my old team (that sounds funny) in California. I left shortly before 7 to walk over to the train station. I didn’t make it to the store anymore (they closed at 7), so had to rely on a bakery for some travel snacks (rolls).

The way to the train station was easy from the office: just head down the main street and make a sharp right just before you’d accidentally enter Italy. This was easy – a right at the rail road crossing and I even remembered the short cut I had seen other passengers take when I arrived. So I got there 5 minutes early. Hmm. Shouldn’t have taken the short cut – I don’t like waiting more time than necessary…

The train ride was expectedly just as pretty as on the way out, but despite my urge to not fall asleep so I could sleep in the train I nodded off, even through the noise of a British senior travel group that entered after a few stops.

As we got to the final destination, the border town Jesenice, it had just gotten dark enough that you couldn’t tell colors anymore, but the sky was still bright enough that you could see the dark silhouettes of the trees and mountains. It was 9:45pm…

I entered the train, heading straight to my room. The conductor ran after me. “Reservazione?” Aha, I had forgotten to check in first…I was the first one in my room, brushed my teeth, then sat down to write. This is the result. Gute Nacht.