Unexpected Guests

Six to a room.

I thought it would be a romantic touch to B’s birthday celebration to take the train overnight to Vienna, where we were to meet up with good friends who live there. Therefore we flew into Geneva, Switzerland the afternoon before and immediately went to the train station, which is a grueling 100 meter walk from the airport, to purchase tickets. We tried to purchase these tickets on line a few days before but couldn’t navigate around the complicated website. The nice gentleman at the ticket counter was very good at his job and knew exactly what lines we should travel on and what stations to make the proper transfers that allowed two people enjoying the second half of their lives enough time to wheel three large suitcases to the next platform. We were told that we were the only two in our sleeping berths, which I assumed meant we were paying for a two berth sleeping quarter.

Surprise! We had mistakenly booked a six person berth complete with four new friends. Each sleeping berth was smaller than a coffin and too short for my legs. As it turns out, we couldn’t have asked for nicer bunkmates. These four young people were all attending a hospitality and hotel management college in Switzerland. One was from Viet Nam, one from Taiwan and two from India.

Bed and Breakfast - Literally

The cramped quarters didn’t allow us a very good night’s sleep but the adventure of talking to these kids from all over the world, was worth it.