The Night Train

Monday, May 26, 2014

   It took our train 6 hours to get to Munich. We missed not having a power plug because Hannah cold not play her movie on the computer to stay entertained. But despite the lack of electronic entertainment, the ride went well and we arrived in Munich on time at 7:15 PM.

   Our next train was not scheduled until 10:50 PM. We found an Asian place to eat and then made our way upstairs to a waiting room. We bought some fruit and drinks to take on the train with us. We spent at least $10 going to the bathroom. It was really nice and clean. However, as it was late in the evening, bunch of unsavory characters were milling about the train station.

   Eventually, our train arrived and the platform was announced. It was a tad confusing as the signs showed our train number and destination as Paris l’Est but it also showed another train number going to Amsterdam. We found our car number and our cabin. We paid a little extra to have a 4 person cabin but the way it was set up was that there was one bunk on the bottom, the middle bunk was lifted up and we used it as a shelf for some of our stuff and then there were two bunks on the top. The top bunks were smaller than the bottom bunks and they were definitely too high for the kids to sleep up there. We decided that Steve would sleep on the bottom bunk, the kids would share the other bottom bunk and I would sleep on the top. We used the other top bunk to hold our large suitcases.

 

   The kids were very tired and cranky but soon fell asleep. They were the only ones to get any sleep on the train. A few hours later, Hannah woke up, I climbed down to get her back to sleep but I did not feel like climbing all the way back (it was a tad scary). So I just grabbed my blanket and pillow and settled on the floor. It was just as hard as the bunk except I did not have to worry about falling down.

   Steve had hard time sleeping too and since there were no power plugs, he was not able to use his CPAP.

   When the conductor came to check the tickets, we confirmed that we were on the right train. Apparently only the first three cars were going to Amsterdam and at some point our train split into two.