Day 20 -- Rome to Paris

In Switzerland I'd had a brainstorm. See, originally, we'd booked a flight from Rome to Paris aboard a "budget airline." This was done months in advance. Now, these budget airlines are all over Europe…they're basically a bare-bones plane ride that'll cost (typically) under $100 a flight. They're a great way to get across the continent quickly (we could either take a 2 hour plane ride, or a 14 hour train ride).

However, there are all kinds of "hidden costs" to take these airlines. One of the big ones is the "baggage allowance." See…our plane allowed up to 20 kg of weight for checked luggage. Anything over that was assessed a "fee," of up to 75 euro for the excess weight.

Since we were traveling heavy, my great plan had been to either pay the fee (because our bags were well above the threshold), or buy an extra carry-on bag to reduce the weight in our checked bags. But I didn't take into account just how much stuff we were going to buy in Europe. Booze, coffee beans, candy, knick-knacks, et cetera. So…even though we came in heavy, we were adding weight, not losing it.

So I had to come up with another great plan. That plan: a sleeper car. See…trains in Europe weren't so bad, we were finding. And 14 hours on a train really wasn't so bad either…so long as we had that sleeper car. So we went to the train station, to price out the cost of a sleeper car from Rome to Paris.

We were presented with three options: a six-person room, a four-person room, and a two-person room. The two-person cost about 300 euro for both of us; 200 euro for the four-person, and 100 euro for the six-person.

We got the six-person. And I knew it…as soon as I walked out of there…I just knew that we should have just ponied up for the two-person room. We could have afforded it easily. But we were in Lucerne…and money was seeping out of our every orifice in that city. We were terrified that we were going to have to start pinching pennies when we got to Rome…and we didn't want to do that…so I went ahead and got us the six-person car, and we crossed our fingers. Maybe we'd get two friendly, clean, easy-going couples to share our cramped quarters with. Or maybe we'd get two stinky, rude, squabbling couples. It was a crap shoot that I almost immediately regretted…

That regret carried through to Rome…and the morning of our departure, our first order of business was a trip to the train station to see if we could upgrade our ticket…and to store our bags (our train didn't leave until 5:45 PM, and our hotel did not allow us to leave our bags there…since there was no front desk). Unfortunately, the train was sold out…which meant our fate was sealed. We left the station to do some last-minute gift shopping…

And after some not-at-all-interesting-to-talk-about souvenir shopping, we returned to the station…early…to catch our train. We didn't want to tempt fate by missing our connection, so we spent a good three hours sitting around at the Rome Termini. There were other reasons that we didn't see more sites before leaving…but I'll just say that the tensions of the constant travel finally resulted in a bit of a "husband and wife fooferaw." And nothing's worse than being in the midst of a fooferaw whilst sightseeing.

So we waited for a long damn time…and our train was late. About 30 minutes late…which was a little disturbing, because…although we had a good five-hour cushion to get across Paris, we wanted to leave nothing to chance. It a missed connection would be very costly.

As soon as the train arrived we hopped aboard – storage space on these trains is actually at a bit of a premium, so we got to our seats as quickly as we could, tossed our bags into the storage space, and took our seats.

Our first set of roommates arrived…and we were quite relieved to see they were a young, clean British couple. It was a great start – native English speakers, and as they were putting their bags up we could see they were decent, intelligent, considerate folk.

But, as the guy was hoisting his wife's bag into the shrinking storage space, we heard a bit of a commotion coming from outside of our room.

"This is our room!" Came a voice.

"We're in the same room," the English woman replied.

"You're taking our seats!" the shrill voice responded.

"No we're not, they're assigned seats. No one is taking your seat."

That seemed to quiet the voice, temporarily. As the Englishman struggled to get both suitcases stowed away the shrill voice started up again.

"We need to get to our seats!"

The English woman had had enough, so she snapped, "Listen, you'll get to your seat! Settle down. We're putting our bags up, and it's going to take a second."

The voice went silent. Erika and I shared a look. She narrowed her eyes accusingly, and I silently implored her forgiveness. The third and final couple was going to totally ruin this sleeper car experience.

And they did. I believe they were from India (guessing from their accents and their foreign passports) – the man was an aggressive, smelly a-hole, and his wife was a shrill, nagging shrew. The man entered the cabin and lifted his bags up to the storage bin, and I was assailed by the stink of body odor and stale food. They managed to wedge their luggage in place, and they sat down by the door…and quietly went about allowing their smell to permeate throughout the room. After enduring the sullen stinkyness for about fifteen minutes we bolted from the cabin to the dinner car.

In the clean, spacious dinner car, we sat and worked on our crossword puzzle a little more. After an hour or so, a waiter announced that dinner service would be starting, and we were served a pleasant, four-course meal …for a very reasonable price. This ate up a good two-and-a-half hours away from Captain Stinky and The Nag. But, since the dinner car seats didn't recline to beds we had to return to our cabin. Hopefully we could fall right asleep, sleeping straight on through the sights and the smells all the way to Paris.

When we got back, the seats had been flattened, and six bunks had magically appeared from the walls. The lights had been turned off, and (joy of joys) our bunk-lights were not functional. I'd pictured curtains in my head when I booked the tickets (to create a kind of walled off personal enclosure, maybe?), but there were nothing but two straps spanning the gap between the bottom and top bunks…to keep people from rolling off their beds in the middle of the night.

Without any light we couldn't stay up and read, and with sleeping bunkmates, we couldn't talk. All we could do was sit and stare at the bunk directly above ours (Erika and I had been placed in the middle bunks of the cabin).

And we tried to sleep. Desperately. But, for some reason, the harder I try to sleep, the less successful I am. And, to pile on to the misery, the "air" was not working in our room. So…because six people were sitting in there, breathing the same air, the temperature started to rise…until, eventually, I was laying on an uncomfortable vinyl-covered pad…my forehead was sheeted in sweat…which was also pooling in my lower back area. It must have been about 90 degrees in that room.

To top it all off, Captain Stinky (in addition to smelling awful) was a "comically loud" snorer. It was full-on sleep apnea – he'd get a good head of steam, snoring a dozen or so times with no problem. Then…suddenly…he'd choke…and air would bubble through his closed lips. This mouth-breathing cycle would repeat about three times, and eventually he'd wake up, having choked on his own saliva. Then he'd shift positions, and I'd think, "THIS IS IT TYLER! YOU'VE GOT YOUR SILENT WINDOW!!! SLEEP!!!" So I'd try like hell (and fail like hell) to fall asleep for the 30 seconds or so that it took him to recharge his snorer batteries. But, inevitably, the cycle would begin again. This went on for…what must have been about three hours – well into the night. In addition, next door to our room was a group of 30 or so high schoolers…all deciding that "staying up late, laughing loudly, and being obnoxious" was the best way to get from Rome to Paris. I would have gone for my earplugs, but they were in my bag beneath the (occupied) bunk below me…and that would have done nothing to cure the sweltering heat that was chiefly responsible for my discomfort.

So I sat and silently cursed my fate. I figured if I cursed it silently long enough, eventually sleep would force its way through my annoyed grimace. I looked over at Erika, and the woman who could fall asleep in practically any position, anywhere, any time after 10:00 PM was wide-eyed, staring daggers at my poor, cheap self. Once again, I silently apologized…but it did no good. The damage was done…and Captain Stinky was single-handedly ruining not just the sleeper car, but any chance we had at a good night's sleep.

Moments away from expiring due to heat stroke, I decided to open our cabin door to let in some of the "less warm" air from the hallway…as well as a veritable cacophony of noise from the bastard teenagers in the neighboring cabin. Well…noise be damned… I was determined to try to lower the temperature…even if it was by a degree or two.

Eventually…at some point…I must have drifted into an uneasy sleep. While I was sleeping, the temperature in our cabin dropped about 50 degrees. Celsius. But that's a story for next time…because this hell-ride was just the first-half of the trip home. Next up is the final chapter – a freezing morning on a train, then 14 hours of airports and airplanes. Then home. Sweet home.