Our sleeper train to Budapest left Munich at midnight.

We’d arrived at the train station well before and waited at the tracks.

An hour passed. The train never came. The tracks stayed empty.

We kept waiting, and a half hour later, our train disappeared from the station’s departures board. I asked at the help desk.

The attendant instructed me in broken English.

“Canceled.”

Then he gestured to a train on the other side of the station.

“Salzburg. Leaves in one minute. Go!”

I grabbed Dani, and we ran to the train, hopping on as it pulled out of the station.

~

The Oktoberfest beer tents had closed at midnight.

We found two seats and squeezed in beside a Canadian traveling alone.

He was headed for Budapest too.

“I’m only staying a day.”

I looked at Dani.

She looked at him.

“That’s not very long.”

He shrugged.

“I have it all mapped out. Here.”

He reached for his backpack but missed the zipper.

“Hang on.”

He squinted his eyes and tried again.

The train lurched then. The beer on his armrest sloshed out a few drops.

“Whoa,” he said reaching to steady it.

“How long have you been drinking?”

He thought about it.

“A few days. I’ll be sober tomorrow. Budapest, remember?”

Behind us, someone began singing.

A group of men in lederhosen joined in.

Another passenger stumbled into the aisle, caught himself against a seat, and kept walking.

The Canadian watched them.

“Looks like they’ve been going all week.”

We settled back into our seats.

A man standing in the aisle lifted his beer to his friends.

Then his knees buckled.

He fell forward and hit the floor face-first with a deafening thud.

The conductor came running.

He looked down at the man.

Then at the people around him.

He shook his head, stepped over him, and continued checking tickets.

We watched as the man’s friends eventually hauled him upright and dragged him toward the door.

The Canadian took another drink.

~

Our stop came an hour later.

We pulled into a small station on the outskirts of Salzburg.

I looked forward to climbing into bunk, but the station’s tracks stood empty.

We found the conductor.

“Track closed,” he said.

He pointed across the city.

“Seven miles. No train.”

He held up a finger.

“Bus.”

Then he pointed toward the darkness.

“Sleeper train there.”

On one side, we stood in the dark, rain hammering the correlated roof above us.

Our beds were sitting on the other.

In the parking lot, volunteers filled paper sacks with food beneath portable floodlights.

Travelers drifted past in the darkness beyond them. Each took a bag with a quiet blessing and moved on.

Then the bus arrived.

At the next station, we ran to the train platform upstairs.

The tracks again stood empty, so we waited in the lobby, huddled for warmth against the wind and rain.

An hour later, I went to check the tracks again and saw a three-car train now parked.

The window said Budapest, but its doors wouldn’t open, and we couldn’t find a sleeper car anywhere.

As I walked around the train, I noticed our Canadian friend inside.

“There are no beds in here,” he said through the cracked window. “Just chairs.”

“Okay,” I called back. “But how do we get in?”

I tried the door.

It didn’t move.

“I don’t know,” he said. “They won’t open for me either.”

We left then, back to our seats in the waiting room.

We waited some more.

Sometime after four, a conductor arrived and unlocked the train.

“No sleeper tonight,” he said before hurrying away.

Dani and I climbed aboard and fell asleep leaning against each other in the dark.

When I opened my eyes again, Hungary was outside the window.