the journey

I am in Belgrade. And I don't know what to say about this city yet, so I will tell you of my journey.

I came from Geneva. I switched trains in Zurich and Zagreb. I crossed Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia (a beautiful place to wake up to, just as F said), Croatia, & part of Serbia. I was travelling for over 24 hours.

There were about a dozen people boarding my train in Zurich carrying kayaking paddles. They were not on the train in the morning; there must be a kayaking hotspot in Austria.

I shared a tiny sleeping car with a Croatian woman. We communicated without sharing a language. She had almost as much luggage as I did, so there was no space. The Croatian rail company gives those in the high end sleeping cars complimentary toothbrushes & toothpaste, washclothes, chocolates, bottles of water, shoe shine pads, and toilet seat covers. Yet they did not have toilet paper in either of the bathrooms. I had to search out some in a second class sleeping car.

Crossing Croatia, I spoke with a man in his mid-60s from Zagreb who does marketing work for an African casino. I made up a story about how my Serbian grandmother is losing her English in her old age, so I am going to Belgrade to learn her native language so I can communicate with her. (I was told not to tell anyone on the train my real purpose - if someone disagreed with peace or feminism, they could make it harder for me to get into Serbia.) When the conversation died down, he asked if he could lay his head in my lap & rest. I said no -- he assured me he would dream about resting his head in my lap & then closed his eyes and dirfted off to sleep. I was happy when he got off the train 20 minutes later.

This will be an interesting place to be.