Like many American college students, I spent my junior year abroad living in Barcelona Spain. Incredible! During the holidays, we traveled through Europe visiting many countries by train. With a Eurail pass you could get on and off as many times as you like. To make time more efficient we would upgrade for a small fee to a pull down car that offered benches as beds for sleeping overnight. If a trip between countries took longer than 10 hours, go over night and sleep on the train, wake up, you’re there. Well, here’s where the food comes into this story, often time there would be four of us traveling and the train car slept six. How to avoid the random stranger in your car for this nocturnal journey? Stinky cheese!! I’m serious. We would stop in any small town and find the ripest, most pungent cheese we could buy. Once we were on the train and settled in our car, we would open that up and let it scream with odor. It worked like a charm every time.
We got our payback one night, in the middle of our sleeping, the train just stopped. Soon the conductor made us all de board with all of our belongings. Standing in the freezing cold, in the middle of December in who knows where, with a gazillion people all speaking different languages, can be very eye opening. They were about to get even wider when we were escorted onto an alternative train but forced to stand only in the vestibule. Overcrowded and mushed tightly, I smelled a smell. We all smelled a smell. Looking around to find the source, it was soon discovered to be an older gentleman eating a liver and onion sandwich he had in his bag from much, much earlier in his journey. Talk about ripe. I was ready to evacuate the vestibule, but just then the rest of the train opened up and we found a new, fresh smelling place for the rest of the ride.
Who’s had a similar experience? Share it, I bet it’s funny.
