A Little Journey?!

Why is it that everytime that I travel somewhere I encounter a semi-drama. It is not as if these incidents that I write about (like the time the Japanese drunken businessman collapsed in front me at HK airport) are all part of my expansive imagination; these things really happen all the time to me and I don't know why.

(Maybe it's because I am always fashionably late, but that should not be the only factor as to why things happen to my on my journeys)

Take for instance my most memorable, and possibly most disturbing incidence that happened to me while I was travelling through Europe on a train with my then boyfriend. We were travelling on the cheap with our inter-rail pass, and just like any poor student in order to cut our accomodation fees for our journey we would always take the night train (second class carriage where everyone scrambles for a cubicle and locks themselves in, even if the ticket collector asks for your tickets) to our next destination. We had travelled from Sweden through Denmark and onto Berlin in as many days. A day is enough in all these places, for it was not the first time that I had visited these places, plus even in the summer the weather was not warm enough.

Back in 1993 not long after the Berlin wall came down and the before the first Balkan conflict between the Croats and the Serbs, many of us were attracted to visit extotic Eastern European cities like Prague, Dubrovnik, Mostar, and Budapest. Our first port of call on the night train from Berlin was to Prague; now in those days anyone travelling on a non "European" passport required a visa, and a lot of bribery to get into, none of which I, nor the three Australian travel companions that we had met in Coppenhagen, had with us at the time. At around 2am as we approached the Eastern German border town of Dresden there came into our carriage three uniform clad relics from the communist past.

Yup, they were the boarder patrol. And yes, we got kicked off the train because we didn't have the right documents, enough German Marks, or Polish vodka to pursuade these manequin like officials who didn't seem to understand the universal language of "you scratch my back, and I will give you a huge kick-back".

The cold floors of Dresden station at 2am even on a summer night is not the most friendliest place on the planet. The five of us huddled together, smoked all our dutyfree Samson's Blue pouch, and looked at the train timetables to get us out of this hell hole as soon as possible. Dresden was a city of culture, a city with many gothic architecture, a city of beautiful museums and galleries, a city of cutting edge industry back in 1945 just before the allies had blitzed the place to rubble, and not a single piece of renovation had happened in since the end of WWII. This was not a nice place to stay overnight especially for a group of five people who spoke little, or no German, and had no money.

It was also not a good place for prostitutes to do their business.

In the 4hours that we spent on the hard stone floors we saw 3 prostitutes who were soliciting potential clients that were "pulled over" and taken to a special room where the station guards beat them up, took their belongings (including their shoes), and possibly sexually assaulted them. I met one of the girls in the toilets crying, tending to her black eye after she had been released from the "Polizeistation" with her money, her bag and her shoes confiscated. In my limited German I could make out that she had some trouble sitting down, and that she had to walk home with no shoes; I had enough sandles and shoes on me so I gave her my raggedy Espidrills that didn't fit her too well, but I will never forget the sunken look in her blackened eyes that said: Thank you for your kindness, and you want to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. Otherwise they will take your passport and your money.

That night we had too much tabacco and not enough booze, but we still managed to take the first train out of Dresden which took us to Genoa, Italy without being assulted, or having our possessions taken from us.

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Today I can live to tell the tale and call it the worst journey so far in my life; however my trip to the land "12hours away" to see Nick was not exactly uneventful either. A certain airline carrier (which I shall not name, but starts with North and ends with West) managed to lose my luggage during the transfer at Mineannapolis. Even Dresden's rigid boarder gards managed to keep all confiscated inventory in check, but not these airlines... no. I bet you anything that the Dresden guards had properly barcoded and sorted all the belongings that they took from the prostitutes, and even took physical inventory on a daily basis. Perhaps the "No-Way-Am-I-Competent" Airlines should learn a thing or two about keeping tabs of one's luggage, and the guards at Dresden should learn to smile and take a few bullshit from unsatisfied customers.