To Vienna

I arrived in the station at Gyor at about 11:45pm. To my dismay, the station was a tiny little local station as I feared it might be, as opposed to a main city station which might have trains running all night. There was a small office next to the tracks where I assumed tickets were sold, so I thought I might get some information on when I might possibly be able to continue on. Being a small town station, and not a big city station, I expected there might be a little communication issue. I did my best to sign out what I wanted to know, and we even got to writing out city names on a piece of paper, however all efforts proved fruitless because it seemed the train I was on was the last of the night. I'd have to wait till 4:45am to catch the first train out. To make matters worse, as I got outside it began to rain. Luckily the station's ticket office had an overhang which provided a little bit of shelter, and a couple wooden benches. It was well lit, and I felt safe enough there that I might just set up camp right there on the bench till morning.

I grabbed my heavier jacket out of my backpack, and put it on over my sweatshirt. Then I put on my gloves, and pulled my hood over my hat. The small Delta Airlines blanket was only large enough to cover my legs, so I tucked them in tightly, and held my arms to my chest as I set up my backpack as a back rest and rested my head on my tiny pillow. I saw the train workers and desk clerks lock up and leave for the night, and the last of the engineers caught his train home. I had not been alone at the station but 10 minutes when a homeless man wandered by. I watched him carefully as he sat down on the bench next to mine rummaging through a department store bag. He looked as if he was of Arab decent. A thick black beard covered his face, and he wore a black beanie with a black hood pulled over that. His shirt was a sort of turtle green and ripped at each sleeve. He wore two pairs of jeans, the ones on the outside were white, and he'd had to rip them slightly at the seam in order to fit them over the other ones. He was young, no older than 30 and every once in a while he noticed me staring at him and gave me a menacing glare and mumbled something inaudible to himself. I was very uncomfortable at first, so I kept one eye on him at all times, hoping he'd eventually just move on. After some time, he was still very much there and I was getting tired and wanted to shut my eyes. He lifted his legs up onto his bench and laid down as if trying to go to sleep. I felt a little better, because this gesture communicated to me that he had no intention of hurting me, but like me, just wanted a safe dry place to sleep. That was totally ok by me. I convinced myself that even if he wanted to do anything to me, or steal something while I was sleeping, he'd have to move out of that position which would undoubtedly wake me up, being as I'm surly not going to be sleeping very heavily on a wooden bench next to a train station.

I started to dose off when I heard another rustling of his bag. I shot up, and noticed he'd moved right back to his original position and was thumbing through things in his bag again, this time talking loudly to himself in some other language. It didn't sound Arabic, nor Hungarian. I began to believe this was just some gibberish he'd devised himself, and he began a full conversation with himself which didn't sound happy at all. Every so often, as before, he would catch me watching him, and turn his back to me a little bit and glare over his shoulder. He spoke at me slightly aggressively as if asking what the hell I was looking at, and challenging me to do something about it. This guy was obviously not stable, and not someone I wanted to sleep next to on a bench for 5 hours. I surrendered my spot, gathering my things and walking a ways further down the platform until I was out of sight. I found another wooden bench under an over hang from a neighboring building. This one was a little less lit, and the bench was much more comfortable than the last, so I was really glad I moved away from that guy and could now get some sleep.

I closed my eyes, and began to drift off again when suddenly I was disturbed by the sound of footsteps. I opened my eyes, and there was the homeless man walking down the platform carrying his treasured bag. He looked up and suddenly noticed me, and a glint of betrayal shown in his eyes as he shook his head at me. He walked past me, and again sat himself down on the bench just next to mine, and began the same routine of rummaging through his bag. I was shocked and disturbed, but my anger by the fact that this man would not leave me alone surpassed all other emotion at the moment. I glared back at him with a hateful stare, hoping to make him uncomfortable enough to leave. However, this had no effect, and he chattered away at himself referring over to me with a challenging disposition. My anger began to turn into fear as I noticed the situation escalating. I had no idea what was in that bag he'd been playing with. I had to prepare for the idea that he could have a knife or gun waiting for me at the bottom, fingering it until his rage overwhelmed him because of my betrayal. I started looking for safe options. I looked around the dark station and found it completely empty, there was no one else here, every window was dark, and every door locked. If I got up to move again, this would undoubtedly only anger him further and he would continue to follow me. Leaving the station occurred to me, but I quickly dismissed it due to the realization that I don't even know where I am. It's the middle of the night, and wandering through back alleyways of a strange city in Hungary is the last thing I should do. Besides, he would still undoubtedly follow me, and if I ran he would probably run after me, and I was on his turf. I thought about things I might have on me to defend myself, but because of traveling on planes I had nothing, no pocket knife or anything with a sharp edge. I had a pen in my pocket, and that was the only thing I could arm myself with should he come at me. If he had a knife, I had a chance. It would at least give me an opportunity to try to wrestle it away from him. If he had a gun however, It would be over. I was too far away from him to point the gun away, and close enough to be out of hope of dodging the first bullet. I sat stuck in locked eye contact with him as he fingered through his white plastic bag. He looked upset with me, and I knew I must be running out of time. I ran every program in my head of what to do in a situation like this. This is just one of those scenarios you're just not supposed to get into in the first place, but what choice did I have? I was here now, and I wanted out.

A train rolled on the tracks in the distance, and brakes screeched. This was the most welcome sound I'd heard in a long time. "Please stop here" I repeated in my head over and over. The train rolled up to the platform down a ways back where I'd been, and halted. It wasn't my train, it was here showing up early for work to begin maintenance, but It meant there was someone else here. I pulled my backpack over my shoulders, and grabbed the rest in my arms, and started walking toward the train. Behind me the homeless man had gotten up again to follow, and I felt him closing in behind me. I quickened my pace, trying not to set off a chase. I felt him quicken his. I made it to the front end of the train where I saw the engineer looking through some paper work. I signaled for him to roll down the window, and he understood. I knew he wouldn't be able to understand much so I tried to simplify my language as much as I could getting right to the point. "The man behind me is following me," I tried to say quietly so the homeless man wouldn't hear. The engineer made a shrug like he didn't understand. "The man is following me!" I said louder, not caring anymore who heard. He looked at the man who was looming a couple meters behind, and then he looked at me. He shook his head and shrugged like he didn't know what to do, and then said "I don't know what to tell you, I don't understand" in more broken words. He closed the window and began to go back to his paperwork. I banged somewhat frantically on the window, and he opened it again. "Please help!" I said, and put my hand on my chest. "Please help me." I repeated, and it seemed he understood that. He looked again at the main, and said to me "Would you like to sleep in the back?" I nodded excitedly, "Yes please, if I could." The engineer opened up the door in the next car, but the homeless man got in before me. The engineer entered the car, and yelled at the man in Hungarian and then kicked him out, and signaled me in. Once inside, he locked the doors behind me, and shut off the lights in the cabin allowing me to curl up on the seats and sleep for a bit. I was so grateful for that engineer. God bless him. I don't know what would have happen had he not been there when he was. From his driver's seat he called someone to get rid of the homeless man, and when my train arrived, he showed me where to go to get on.

About an hour later, I arrived at the next little city. This station was a little bit bigger, and trains were running now, so I decided to skip my round about journey through another tiny Hungarian city, and find a direct line to Vienna. That turned out easier than I thought. The first guy I asked pointed me to a direct train to Vienna already boarding on the next platform. I tried to sleep a little more on the train to Vienna, but it was only about 2 hours, and I think I got an hour out of it. I arrived in Vienna and took my time orientating myself. I transferred all my Hungarian Forints to Euros, studied the maps of the city and metro rails, and found a map for myself. I picked out a hostel on my phone which seemed reasonable, and asked the man at the information desk to mark it on my map. He rolled his eyes, as if it wasn't his job to help tourists, and disdainfully circled where I wanted to be, and where we are. I asked how to get there and he said "18 tram" in a very impatient tone, which I shook off. The number 18 tram was the wrong tram as I later found out, and took me in the complete opposite direction than where I wanted to be. I finally stopped into a couple hotels (which were all booked up) and the front desk helped me find my way to the metro where I could take right to where I wanted to be. I've begun to like the metro now, because I'm realizing how much easier it makes things. I got to where I needed to be, and with only a little difficulty, found the hostel. To my great satisfaction, there was some room, and I booked two nights there. After settling, I explored the city a little, as I do when I enter a new city. My hostel sits right outside Vienna's equivalent to Hollywood Blv. The place is lined with department stores, and shops of all kinds. There are cafes and restaurants and little food vendors everywhere. Flashing neon lights illuminate the street, and there's a hotel and Mcdonalds on every corner. They even have the hand and footprints of Austrian Celebrities laid into the sidewalk. That street eventually leads to the beautiful old part of town, where the museums and old monuments reside in beautiful parks filled with flowers and Grecian columns. I walked around and bought a braughtworst and slice of fresh bread from meat and bread vendors in a little open food market. I walked for several hours, and then went back to the hostel to finally get a little sleep. When I woke up, I took a hot shower, and went out walking again to find some dinner. It was a pretty interesting day.

Tomorrow I'm going to take the metro to the other side of the old town by the river, and explore around there. That's pretty much all I have planned for now. There's a movie theater right near my hostel which plays American movies, so I was debating whether to go see a movie, but I kinda got my movie fix from the hostel in Budapest so I dunno. Plus, I don't really want to go to a movie by myself, I usually hate doing that. We'll see what I decide to do tomorrow.
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