On a train from Kracow to Prague September 1997
Me and my pal are off interrailing round Europe, since this is some kind of tradition once you finished uni (or it was in the days when you didn't leave in thousands of pounds worth of debt).

Being stingey we were taking trains overnight and sleeping there instead of paying for hostels. A lot of our time was also spent in Eastern Europe as it was still dirt cheap in those days.

This led us to be on a train at about midnight in Krakow. Not too bad to start with. It has nice little compartments and we've been on these trains so often we've made ourselves quite at home within minutes.

After an hour or so we stop at a station and a man in a hat shouts at us until we get off the train and onto another. We're not sure why, because we don't speak Polish.

As this train approaches the next station,we start to hear a noise like the sea, but as the train gets closer to the station it gets louder and louder.

Then the train gets to the station and mayhem erupts. Hundreds and hundreds of very drunk and leery football fans invade the train.

As the train pulls off the hoards turn into a little riot - curtains are torn down, the luggage of someone in the next compartment is kicked across the corridor and a compartment door is ripped off its hinges and forced out of the moving train's window.

We try and pretend it's not happening.

As the fans start to tire, two of them decide to join our compartment (which, fortunately, has so far been ignored). It's been some time, now, and our nerves are frayed and this is not looking like a good development.

I sit there frozen to the spot as a football hooligan falls asleep on my shoulder.

Prague was nice.
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Thu 14 Jul 2011, 23:14, Reply)