My train to Amsterdam was not scheduled to leave until after 8 pm on the 20th so I had a lot of time to kill. After breakfast and a morning checking out, I spent the day in Pergola, the Zeitgeist hotel restaurant. The staff did not mind: it wasn’t very busy and I ordered coffees, lunch, dinner and wine while I occupied the table. It was been an opportunity to write and think about the past 3 weeks. First, my 3 day minimum stay in a place has become a 5 day minimum. It just takes me a while to settle after traveling and most places seem to require at least a day to even determine what I’d like to see. I can’t change my travel plans on this trip; at least, I can’t change plans easily, since both air travel and hotel stays have been booked in advance. For future travel, I’ll know to plan longer stays. Second, I’ve learned that each of the cities I have visited so far could easily keep me occupied for a week and a half or more. Third, I really need to pay attention to my mind saying, “Enough!”. I pushed too hard in Berlin and Prague trying to see and do too much; that excess resulted in my mental and physical fatigue in Budapest and Vienna. This is a pleasure trip not a work task to be completed in a timely manner. I can take whatever sort of time I need, whenever I need it. I truly thought that I had a good sense of what I need for my mental balance before, but this trip is teaching me that I was mistaken and that I need to be more patient with myself and others as I travel. Fourth, I have no sign of home sickness yet at 3 weeks into this trip. I’d traveled to Australia and then New Zealand some years back for 3 weeks and was a bit home-sick by the end. I’m not feeling that now and I am not even a third of the way through my journey, so I suppose it’s a good thing. I wonder if I get home sick in anticipation of a trip is ending or whether I’ll feel it later on this trip.

I left the hotel restaurant and walked to the train station with my bags. My knee wasn’t normal but it was much better. Because I was taking an overnight train with a sleeping compartment, I had access to the Austrian railway lounge. After showing my ticket, I was able to sit quietly and have free snacks and sparkling water in the lounge. The Nightjet train to Amsterdam was scheduled to leave at 8:10 pm and arrive in Amsterdam around 10 am; I made my way to the platform about 15-20 minutes early, but the train ended up being late by about an hour. I boarded and once I figured out the somewhat confusing room numbering system, I found myself in a cabin by myself. There was a toilet and shower compartment in the cabin with seats near a long table. The bed was not made up and it was a little hard to see how the seats and table would fold away to a bed. My ticket had not been scanned before I boarded the train so I thought I’d ask all my questions when a conductor came by. 

The car steward came by to check my ticket and explain services available on the train after a couple stops. Nice fellow. His English was certainly better than my German. He served me a small bottle of Prosecco to drink while everyone was getting settled. Once everyone was settled, he came to fold down the seats and pull out a frame that the bed could fold down upon; there was no need to move the table. It was a pretty ingenious set up. The bed was a little hard, but I was just happy to be able to lie down and stretch out. Despite there being a quiet period from 9 pm to 8 am announced on the train, there were a couple groups of loud excited people who kept me awake for a while even with earplugs. Indeed, I did not really sleep; I dozed, woke and dozed. The train had some sort of breakdown around 3:30 – 4 am which woke me up – once with the sudden quiet stillness of the breakdown and then again later, when power restoration turned all the lights on. I dozed, got up around 7:30 am and used the bathroom compartment – cramped, yes, but it woke me and I was showered and dressed to go before a leisurely breakfast. The train was running close to two hours late by the time we reached Amsterdam Centraal; it was a lucky circumstance for me since I did not have to figure out how to get to my hotel in the Amsterdam morning rush.