I know I've written once before of the woes of travel. Truly every trip you take, you experience the unknown of transportation and packing. My biggest mistake this time around was forgetting a few key electronics in the hotel room! Not a good move, but that is what I get from attempting to pack and check out in under a hour.
Putting that aside, let me rather entertain you with a tale of el tren. Ryan had booked us on the overnight train so that we could be together while traveling to Granada. Very thoughtful although 11.5 hours on the train, not always pleasant. As I imagine you can piece together, we barely caught the train due to scheduling a bit tight, taking a bus in which we had to wait out 8 stops, and not having my train ticket printed ahead of time. Regardless we dashed to catch another train (just ask Brigitte sometime of the frequency this has occurred). Breathless but relieved we sat in seats that weren't ours so that way we could sit together. Of course this would be a problem later, but let me continue with the lovely patronage our on car.
Sitting directly in front of us was a single guy probably mid-forties, a bit disheveled. Truly he hadn't caught my attention upon first sitting down. What did grab my eye was him unzipping his hunter green duffel to pull out an unopened bottle of liquor and taking a large swig. Okay, I know lots of people have a few drinks during a flight or possibly prior and alcohol in Europe is common, but bringing your own bottle is a bit different. Soon the attendant came by asking for tickets and exchanged a few words with the man in front of us. Since this interaction was in Spanish I didn't really get it, but I had a feeling the attendant asked him to put something away. I assumed it was the liquor, but soon realized he was referring to placing his bag on a rack rather than an empty seat. He did comply although he did take another healthy swig before putting it away. At this point, we started to wonder if he was just drinking his way to a good night sleep on the train or if it was going to a lonnnnng night. Thirty minutes later our concerns were answered when he yet again retrieved his bag to take a very large drink from the bottle. This drink was all more entertaining as I watched the reaction of the man across the aisle. Oh it was priceless! The man not only looked surprised, thoroughly displeased but appalled as well. I will admit it took me a few minutes of laughing into Ryan's shoulder to regain my composure. Ryan also was trying to convince me to move to the other car to get away from the drunk guy due to this constant chattering and mumbling to himself. Soon we had stopped at which a lovely girl arrived to sit next to the drunk guy. Ignoring the dimmed lighting the girl proceeded to talk loudly on her phone every few seconds making this ridiculous high pitched laugh reminiscent of an odd hiccup. Then I heard the magic word "Ciao" in which case I turned to Ryan to give him a gleeful smile as I realized she was ending her phone call. Ah peace at last!
How wrong I was. Next the drunk guy started mumbling again in which the girl thought he was talking to her so they chatted about for a bit. Once again Ryan purposes we move to another car while at the same time the man sitting across from the drunkard stands up. Is he planning on leaving too? I ask. Oh of course not, he is finding a plastic trash bag. Why you ask? Oh for his wife who is currently fanning herself looking absolutely sick. Ryan leaned over as said, "Now can we go????" We fled the car as quickly as we could before she could start wretching or the drunkard would cause a scene or that damn girl would laugh again.
The rest of our ride was okay aside from having difficulties with our seats and small child behind us hacking up his lung. If we aren't infected with some new virus we will be most lucky. Though I will say Ryan's first words upon our arrival in Barca were "Never again will we take the train" just as the drunkard staggered past to buy himself another ticket.
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