Harry Potter Really Glamorized the experience of Riding a Train in a Compartment

Friday February 18, Day 1

I am not entirely sure how to describe Carnaval. It is derived from ancient celebrations of celebrating the end of winter as well as celebrating and partying before the beginning of Lent. People dress up in all kinds of crazy costumes (a way to show that you aren’t taking yourself as seriously) its kind of if Halloween or Mardi Gras lasted for several weeks. Either way Miami gives us a week off to experience this wonderful culture experience, people are taking advantage to travel to cities/countries that are not logistically possible to get to on the weekends (Greece, Italy, UK, Spain etc). I had to make a difficult decision…. Spain or the UK, I ultimately decided that I would go to Spain as I am confident that I will travel to London and the UK at some other point in my life and I couldn’t say the same about Spain. I also felt that it was an important cultural experience and different than other parts of Western Europe.

I am traveling with three other friends: Caroline, Annie and Megan. As we have all activated our EuroRail (EuroRail is a promotion offered by 21 countries in Europe. Before left I purchased a “ticket” for $545 that allows you for 10 days of travel within a 2-month period to use trains in any of the participating countries. On days when you “use” your EuroRail you write in pen the date and conductors then punch that box so its “used”, and you can go on as many trains as you want on days that day. The $545 may seem expensive however given a lot of the longer trains are typically around 150 to 200 euro it is an amazing deal and is actually one of the only ways that I can afford to travel as much as I do.) Because we had our euro rail we could afford to go on a 227 euro overnight train to Nice France. While Nice isn’t exactly on the way to Spain we are making a small detour as Nice is on Megan’s bucket list of places to travel to in Europe.

Our train didn’t depart till 19:30 so I was able to go home after my classes and finish packing which was really nice for once. We had decided that we would take the 17:49 train to Luxembourg so that we would have time to meet up, grab some dinner and buy food for the trip before our train departed. I somehow got confused with time and ended up taking the 16:49 train (better to be early although its an abnormal experience for me) and had an hour to kill in the Lux trainstation before everyone showed up.

Everyone was really excited for the overnight train, it seemed like just another European experience. We unfortunately had all been assigned beds in different compartments, we figured that we could hang out in one or in the snack car and then get a good night sleep. However shortly after we settled into our respected compartments the conductor who was extremely nice offered to move us so that the four of us could be together in a compartment by ourselves. A train compartment is absolutely tiny, on both sides there are three-tired bunk beds that are separated by a mere foot. Add in 4 adults and 4 giants hiking backpacks and its cramped. After organized everything making the beds into couches so we could sit down and talk we settled in for a fun evening.  We talked, shared stories, ate literally an entire bag of paprika chips (which are by far the best European snack food) we headed to bed around 11:30 in our cozy little compartment. 

Annie posing in our overnight train compartment. the bottom bunk on the right was mine!

Just chilling in our little cramped compartment.

 I normally have no problems sleeping on trains, the gentle rocking motion is actually very soothing, however I didn’t sleep as well as I anticipated. We were suppose to arrive in Nice at 9 am. So we set our alarms for 8 so that we would have time to get dressed and pack everything up. Shortly before 8 we stopped (we checked it wasn’t Nice) So we were slowly waking up… we however managed to miss an announcement that said that our train had broken down and that we were going to have to switch to a local train. We would still be sitting in that compartment if our conductor friend didn’t come to rescue us. We therefore had to in about 2 minutes get out of this tiny room which was an adventure and we hurtled off the train clutching our half packed backpacks in our pajamas – oh how the French are going to love us!