Return to Vienna

The train to Vienna was boarding in Budapest’s Keleti station. An elderly Hungarian woman, speaking broken German, asked me to help her with her bags. I did so, and then took a seat on the train. We were bound for Vienna.

The ride was not quite as uneventful as I had hoped. For one, I soon discovered that the ticket I purchased online (for a very reasonable price) did not come with a seat number. Thus, anytime the train made a stop, there was a chance that I would be booted by someone who di...