Meeting people on trains

Coffee in Poland
Beer in the Czech Republic
Water in Slovenia

Travel by train is about ... a lot of things ... and so much of it the people and the places. An especial thanks to Andreas from Austria who I met on the train from Wroclaw yesterday. As is so often the case, we started off in our compartment as three individuals in silence not knowing what hand we had been dealt, why we were travelling and whether we could communicate. The ticket inspector came through and requested the third bloke to relocate to 2nd class - and then there were two.

We dallied, we dawdled, and it became clear that we were rather late. Engineering works meant that our train had to share a line with trains coming the other way, and it would be rather dangerous for both to try at the same time. And the silence / the ice was broken as we thumbed our phones looking for changes to onward connections. It turned out that the train was headed to Prague but neither of us was. And we both had a five minute connection to make at Usti Nad Orlici which was going to fail by a generous margin!

Replanning and apps are marvellous research and help tools - Andreas headed for Graz after a weekend away, on his own, exploring the architecture of Polish cities - like me an enquiring mind, like me in IT and he's even done a bit of Tcl/Tk. Enquiring minds meet; I have been away from the news and he updated me on the US airstrike on Iran, and we talked about the UK^▸ 's new position in but not really Europe after Brexit. I feel humble that he talked in my "home" language of English. We talked of home working, of how he is allowed to work remotely but not our of country, and joked that with a VPN his bosses really would not know - BUT he was headed home to work from home tomorrow.

It was a hot day and the independent counter in Usti station was selling beer - problem being in Czech currency. Somewhere in my backpack, yes, I have some. But oh dear. Cutting a searching long story short, I fumbled, found a large denomination Euro note ... which the seller could not change ... and my friend Andreas offered and bought me that beer. A kind gesture from a friend and perhaps a kindred spirit - Thank you if you ever come across this.

We caught the same connecting train onward ... both replanned onto different routes. I left the train and Olomouc while he stayed on to the next junction; I hope he made is connection but as he said "it's a Sunday, I'm not in a rush and I will get there whatever time". Ah yes - a spirit I can endorse.