Sleeper train ride to Brussels 2009

Time to unpack the luggage!

Nicole, Nikkiy and I traveled by sleeper train to Brussels from Prague.  Jason didn't purchase a ticket to Brussels before he left the United States, so he ended up taking a shady Greyhound-type bus from Prague to Brussels.  That is a conversation for another time. I'm just glad him and his stinky socks made it to Brussels.

As you know from my last post, it's now time to drag Nikkiy's luggage in the reverse direction on the stupid subway to the train station.  But that's really not the worst part of this story.

Looking down from the top bunk.

Once we get to our compartment, we are escorted to our bunks by our steward/butler (honestly, I don't know what to call that dude) who showed us how to turn our chairs into beds and how to go about storing our luggage.  Here we go again.

Nikkiy's bags din't fit in the storage, and the steward/butler couldn't store them anywhere for us, so the only alternative was to empty the stupid bag of the things she needed and shove the empty suitcase to the side for the night.  That smile you see on Nikkiys face in the picture to the right.....I'm almost certain it's fake! ;-)

All Aboard

If you have never taken a sleeper train, you should do it.  It's actually kinda cool.  The chairs you see in the picture actually turn into the bottom bunk, behind the back rests is a second bunk.  and last is the top bunk that I'm taking the photo from.  The wall that Nikkiy is leaning up against is actually the end of the space and is the connecting door to the neighbor unit.  This door is locked thank God, because I thought it was a bathroom, and tried over and over to open the stupid thing before I was told by our steward that it was actually NOT the bathroom and I had to go to the end of the car to take care of that business.  Our poor neighbors probably thought I was trying to break into their cabin.  I think my closet might be bigger than this space, so you can see how Nikkiy's luggage was a problem.



It's actually not easy to sleep on a sleeper train.  It's rather bumpy, and the train stops at stations along the way all night long.  Each time the train stops, the air turns off and it get's hot in our cabin.  But I'll take the sleeper train over the shady Greyhound-type bus any day.