Things we learned from traveling with Scott Nathan.

Always be prepared with the basics……food in Ziploc bags, wine, flashlight, antacids, hand sanitizer, IPOD speaker……These items came in handy during our 14 hour overnight journey on a Soviet era, Hungarian train. The journey began fairly smoothly; we settled into our private sleeper suite (closet size) and enjoyed many laughs. A visit to the toilet proved interesting (see photo). Upon taking a seat, a breeze was felt. Interestingly enough, one could see the train tracks below. We were tempted to drop a note down…get us off this train (this is where the hand sanitizer came was useful)! As Roz entertained with her singing, Glenn studied the posted sign posted above the window not to through any bottles out the window and thought out loud “Why is it ok to defecate on the tracks and not ok to toss a biodegradable out the window?” Before bed, we were informed that the custom and passport patrols would enter the sleeper train…..12, 2, 4 am with a gentle (ha ha) rap on the door with their night sticks. Now we have traveled all over Europe, crossing borders without passports or check points. When booking the sleeper car trip from Budapest to Venice, little did we know that we were crossing two non-EU countries…..Croatia and Slovenia. Border crossing coupled with a train engineer and his heavy brake foot at so many stops that made you feel you were going to fall out of bed, this sleepless in Budapest train ride was one for the memory books. Our train trip a day later from Venice to Interlaken, Switzerland in comparison was heavenly, first photo above.