I write about transport for a living, which means I'm supposed to be cynical about it. I am not cynical about the Chopin. It leaves Warsaw at 19:15, arrives in Budapest at 8:35, and in between it does the one thing no hotel can: it takes you somewhere while you sleep.
The couchette is narrow, the ladder is a suggestion, and the man in the bottom bunk snored in a key I'd describe as B-flat. None of this matters. What matters is the moment at Bohumín when the train stops, everything goes quiet, and you realise you're in another country and nobody asked you to prove it.
At six I sat in the corridor with the window down as far as it goes, which is not far, and watched Slovakia turn into Hungary. Fields, mist, a man on a bicycle who waved. I waved back. Journalism.
Keleti, when it came, was gold light through a glass roof. I had slept, badly, for eight hours, and felt better than any hotel has ever made me feel. Cost: 39 euros. Notifications received: none. I'd left my phone in my bag on purpose, and the bag under the bunk, and the bunk in 1961.
