Although I've never seen much of Germany, I must say that the train stations are very clean and orderly. I say this without a hint of sarcasm. They are wonderful stations. Most everywhere I went in Europe, people would remark about the efficiency and hygiene of German train stations and given the fact that I had to wait in the station in Berlin for a couple hours, it was a welcomed experience.
Eventually my train bound for Brussels arrived and I found vacant compartment all to myself. After my little sojourn in Poland (which leaving felt more like an endurance test for the amusement of the Gods), all I really wanted to do is sleep a couple hours and purposely searched out a vacant compartment, which wasn’t very difficult as it was night time and few passengers were boarding. Well, I found one and situated myself all comfortable next to the window when in walks a young German couple. "hmmm…well, I won’t be alone, but they look like a nice couple. Perhaps someone to talk to" I think to myself, but then I noticed that they seemed to be a little distressed about something. The man kept looking at his ticket and then back at me and then tries to tell me something. After explaining that I don't speak German he says
"You are sitting in our seats."
"I beg your pardon"
"You are sitting in our seats."
"I'm sorry, but you must be mistaken. This car is for non-reserved seating. The car for reserved seating is further down."
"No, you are in our seats."
Repeating myself "No, I don't think I am because this is a compartment for non-reserved seats."
Now, I should describe this compartment to you so you have a mental picture of what's going on. We're on a very nice, new train and the plush compartment with bench seats that can seat about six to eight people. Plus, there were only a few people on the entire train because it was so late at night. I imagine that every individual could have had their own compartment if they wanted and here I was arguing with a guy who (I assumed) was trying to impress his girlfriend about how assertive he can be over one seat. I admit it was petty of me, but I was tired and didn't feel like being pushed around or even moving to another compartment. So I went outside the compartment to make sure I was correct. If I was wrong then I'd feel like a real ass and have to apologize to this guy. But I wasn’t wrong! I was right! It was non-reserved! Justice has triumphed and for once I was right! When I turned around to declare my, albeit small, yet morally great victory I came upon a site that I have not seen since my early years in grade school – what do I discover?! He took my seat! I was right and I still lost my seat! "What sort of moral justice is this?" I fumed "That was my seat! I claimed it first! And this squatter (literally) has come and taken it away from me. For such an action I demand an apology!" and would have done so, if he hadn’t cut me off with this line
"These are our seats, but we'll allow you to stay in the compartment if you want to."
"He'll ALLOW me to stay in the compartment?! A non-reserved compartment! Oh you bet I’m going to stay Spanky! I’ll be plotting this man’s demise all the way to Belgium. Are there pillows here? I can smother him while he sleeps." So as I stood there, recovering from the shock of this man's arrogance thinking how to make the best of it, I decided that the best place to sit was right next to him. I was as close to this him as the Polish man with the vodka was to me. Where is the garlic sausage when you need it?! And so there I sat unshaven, sweaty and dirty. As the night progressed his girlfriend stretched out on the seats next to her and fell asleep, but because of my sitting next to him he couldn't do the same. Instead he would occasionally glare at me to which I responded only by looking up from my magazine with a smile knowing that in our silence I had indeed won this battle if not the war.
Ironically, my crowning glory finally came when his girlfriend left to use the bathroom and when she came back she saw that the compartment was non-reserved (AH HA!!) and she apologized for her boyfriends behaviour. A rather hallow victory as the apology came from her and not the man, but it was wasn't the satisfaction that I was looking for.
BELGIUM
Ahh....Belgium, sweet Belgium. My home away from home, but not my point of destination. To explain, while in Belgium I decided that I would like to go to Eastern Europe, Russia, and all the way to Kazakhstan. For the sole reason of seeing my friends in these places. The problem was that traveling to all these places was a bit complicated at the time and I had to arrange everything on my own. So I called the embassies to find out which countries I needed a visa for. Kazakhstan was one of those countries. Not only did they require a visa, but I needed someone there to invite me, have the invitation check and confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and then the Embassy would issue me the visa. Normally this invitation "check" takes about two weeks, but for me it took almost a month and a half. I'm still curious to what they found.
I called my friend to have her do this for me and a while later I called the Embassy to go and pick up the visa. You must understand that the Embassy is in Brussels which is over two hours away by train from the village of my family, plus I have to travel across the city to get there. This is not an easy journey. The first time I went I managed to find the building, but since I didn't see a sign confirming my suspicion of it actually being the Embassy I wasn't sure. Because the gates of the Embassies in America are usually electrified and trespassing on the Embassy grounds is a criminal offense I wasn't too eager to set off the alarm system and looked for a box to communicate with them. There was none. Frustrated, but not dishearten I went to the nearest restaurant (a kilometer away) and called to be let in. Evidently they didn't have the security system working yet and I could have walked right in. When I got there the secretary told me that the man I needed to speak to left for the day and I would have to come back later. I was not happy about losing my day to the Embassy, but I would soon learn that day was going to be one of many.
I went to the Embassy three separate times following this incident. Each time I would call to make sure the man would be there and each time I was told "yes." Then when I would get there, he wasn't for various reasons; "he's sick", "he's on vacation", or "he's in a meeting now come back tomorrow." I kept trying to convince them that I didn't live close by and that this wasn't really easy for me to keep coming back and forth. I had hoped that I could have worked something out with them. I wasn't able to strike a deal
Finally one day I was talking to my friend in Kazakhstan telling her of the problems that I was having and she mentioned that she had a friend who could help. Her friend was a sister of one of the people in the Embassy and this woman agreed to help me get the visa if I contacted her. Wonderful!
I went back to the Embassy the next day and asked for this woman. Only I didn't talk to the normal secretary this time. Instead I talked to a well built man that I never saw before, but I paid no attention because I was here to see someone else. When the woman came down the stairs she gave the man a nervous look and walked over to me. The man followed and sat down at the table with us. I had a real bad feeling about this. I tried to talk to the woman about who I was and what I was told she could do for me when she stood up and announced that she had never heard of me and would never participate in such a devious plan to obtain a visa without the state knowing and walk away. I just sat there completely confused. I slowly turned to the man who was reclining in his seat when it was then that I realized that I basically just confessed my plan to the KGB and almost had someone arrested for conspiracy. "I’ll be leaving now” This was another bad day.
After this little "stunt" I decided to keep quiet for a while and hope that the Embassy would forget about me. In fact, this was the perfect opportunity to go to Spain.
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