Spanish Night Train Encounter
Like what happened with The Heat of the South, I found another travel story that has been sitting quietly on my harddisk without ever having been published. I wrote this quite a few years ago, based on my Europe travels in 2002/2003, before I even started studying in Amsterdam. The story is very much unfinished, so don’t hold your breath — especially at the ‘end’ it lacks a number of paragraphs I suppose. I just want to have done something with it, instead of it just ‘gathering dust’ on my laptop. Posting it on my blog is the best solution for that I reckon. Here it goes.
Spanish Night Train Encounter
Barcelona is a blast. Decorated with wonderfully weird architecture of Antonio Gaudi, filled with culture, parties, and backpackers from all over the world.
Some people don’t like to travel overnight. I do. I can sleep just about anywhere in any condition, and it saves the cost of a night’s accommodation. On one of my many overnight long distance hauls, I took the train from Valencia to Málaga. The train didn’t arrive when it was supposed to, which was around midnight if I remember correctly. I got a bit worried, as the signs indicated that everything was perfectly on schedule. With my poor knowledge of Spanish I came to find out there was a delay of approximately ten minutes. Those ten minutes turned out to be more than an hour and a half. I could have headed up to a bar, but the Barcelona parties had just about drained my budget, and everything was just about to close anyway. So I just sat there on those uncomfortable steel benches along with the other waiting passengers in the cold and windy train station, while the cleaners on nightshift walked around, smoking their el cheapo cigarettes, and once in a while sweeping the floor for a bit.
Finally, the train did arrive. As turned out, my seat was right next to a girl who was as beautiful as one could imagine. Long black hair, nice Mediterranean skin, and the brightest green eyes.
She listened to some of the Dutch music I’d brought with me on my journey. She said she loved the music and the language, but couldn’t understand one bit of it of course. I attempted to explain in Spanish what the songs were about, but utterly failed to use the right words or grammar. She responded to my attempt with a sweet smile. Not long after that, we both started dozing off, as by now it was already quite late. She fell asleep on my shoulder,
She hastily pressed a kiss against my cheek and left the train. I never saw her again.
