Chilly, damp, and overcast, this morning felt like England.
But I wasn't in England. Where was I? I looked out the train window and squinted into the pre-dawn murkiness. Too neat to be Romania, too soon to be Slovakia yet. Must be Hungary. I looked at my watch.
It was 6:20. Or 5:20. Either way, Budapest had clearly failed to appear at 5:17 like it was supposed to. That also meant that I would almost certainly miss my connecting train, which left Budapest at 5:28. Of all the trains that this five-segment trip included, the one from Budapest to Bratislava was the one I had wanted to miss the least. I'd already bought my ticket for that train. And those sorts of tickets were nonrefundable. I sighed. I was way to tired to try to sort this right now.
Some hours earlier, I had said a sad good-bye to my wonderful friends in Romania and been glad that at least I had the excitement of travelling to lessen the the sadness of the farewell. I liked to travel. An uncertain number of hours later, I found myself questioning this assessment...
Besides the trouble of Budapest being late, there was that one Romanian woman who woke me up at 1:32 am in the waiting area in Arad. Judging by her expression, she was clearly trying to communicate a matter of life and death. Her face was just inches from mine as she repeated herself. I managed a sleepy smile, “I'm sorry. I don't understand.” But she didn't understand what I said either. Apparently, she thought I said “Please talk louder so that everyone in the room turns to look at us—and get a little closer so that when you talk to me you accidentally spit on my face.” She kindly obliged.
She shuffled my luggage around and I think she said “You don't speak Romanian!?” four times. I shook my head and said no, I didn't speak Romanian. Then I think she told me that the world was going to end really soon, using a lot of hand motions so that the stupid girl she was talking to would understand. She put her hands on either side of my face and (I think) told me that everyone was about to die!
I smiled, hoping this would calm her down. “Thank you,” I said politely. “Thanks for telling me.” I nodded reassuringly. I closed my eyes then, hoping that if she thought I was asleep, she'd just give up. I could still hear her talking, but I told myself that I wasn't certain she was talking to me. Maybe she had decided to share her important news with the lady next to me.
I didn't go back to sleep, though. I figured all the lady had been probably been trying to tell me, probably was, “Don't sleep! Watch your stuff!” I decided to stay awake and keep an eye on my luggage. The train I had been waiting on was late, though. I stayed awake more. Then it came, finally!
It was raining. I walked to the closest door. Two people were inside, clearly trying to get out. I stood there and waited for them. The handle would jiggle a little and then I'd hear them muttering in some language. I tried to help open the door from the outside. But the handle was wet and I didn't really want to get my felt gloves all wet. “Oh, sorry, it's stuck,” I said unhelpfully as I moved on to another door. I didn't take any chances this time and went to one that was already open. This car looked nicer than the others. This is the thing about the trains over here: unlike books, you absolutely CAN judge them by what's on the outside. The new ones are less dirty, less likely to stink, less likely to have heaters and lights that are broken, and less likely to have been designed during communism using colors that make you want to scratch your eyes out. Oh, and tickets almost never have a specific seat written on them, so you pretty much are stupid if you end up in a gross car.
Well, I had done it. I had picked a nice car. It was a sleeping car. The man in charge of it let me stay there for about half an hour for free before his boss found out and made him kick me out.
Before leaving, the “sleep wagon” man had told me that the next stop was the border. This is what happens at the border: two large men in dark uniforms appear. They knock twice and then immediately bang the door open. They both have flashlights, which they proceed to shine in your eyes and in every single corner of the compartment. Then they say the word “passport” in about ten languages reallyfastsoitsoundslikealloneword. You hand it to them. They flick through it seven times. Then they look at you and mispronounce your name. You nod and smile. They look back at it and pull open their special wooden box they wear around their necks. They stamp your passport in an awkward place and then scribble something on it. They then hand it back to you using only two fingers. You thank them and they nod and they stride off importantly to secure the next compartment.
I remember waking up two times, about 45 minutes apart from each other, and seeing the exact same sign sitting outside the window. It was a station marker. (The name of the place had two slanty lines over an “o.” That meant it was Hungarian.) That is another thing about the trains over here: for no discernible reason, they will just stop. Often it is nowhere near a station. Sometimes they will get going again after ten or fifteen minutes. Other times they will sit there for hours until it is already past the time when they are supposed to be in Budapest. Then, when they are good and ready, they will move on again.
Back to the fact that I like to travel. It makes some people nervous. I admit, things like five minute layovers make me nervous, too. But, I stand by my earlier assertion. I love travelling. Travelling is a bit of an adrenaline rush for me. It's also the only way I get to see most of my friends anymore. It also distracts me from the often depressing struggles against loneliness, confusion, culture shock, and feeling useless that often accompany living in a foreign country.
Most of all, though, I like travelling because I am really, really not in control. It's almost refreshing to realize that I have no power to make the train pick up and start moving like it's supposed to when it's decided to just sit and hang out in the place with two slanty lines over the “o” for three hours. It's refreshing because it's at times like these that I have to trust God completely with where I'm going and how I'm gonna get there. Pretty much no pressure on me, whatsoever. It's at times like this when I start to realize that God isn't just in complete control over how long we spend in slanty-“o”-town or which train doors work and which ones don't. He's that much in control of every little thing that happens in my life. And just because everyday stuff like missing my streetcar or my alarm clock dying in the middle of the night feel like they are partly my fault, doesn't mean He doesn't have space for those little mistakes in His greater plan, too.
Thinking it over, I kinda wish I could apply this “travelling faith” to my everyday life more.
