Travels in Europe, Coach on Fire, and An Old Volvo With The Dog
Every summer we take a trip from the West to the East of Europe. We take trains or drive a car. On the way, we would visit a town or two in Germany or the Netherlands. Sometimes Austria or Belgium. Trains journeys are fun, expensive fun but still, fun.
Once in Praha, we reserved a cuopé on a night train that cost us around £80 (to which I was very surprised) just to find out that we had to pay for 3 beds in that cuopé, around 200 Euros. For some reason, we had only pounds. Why? No idea why but no one cares about pounds on the Czech train to Budapest. I had money on my card but they didn’t accept cards. Eventually, the train stopped somewhere in Slovakia and I managed to go to a local station and buy tickets.
The other time, we took a double-decker coach from Vilnius to Warszawa, eight hour journey became a twelve-hour journey with a stop between. The coach caught fire. We slept on the top deck. I opened my eyes just to see the top deck was full of smoke. I looked through the window, people were standing outside without bothering to wake sleeping people up. Surreal.
The drivers spoke in Russian, I asked them what happened. ‘Pizdec’, was their answer. I don’t know how to translate the word but it won’t be easy. Sorry ladies. Pizda — vulgar word for vagina. Pizdec —the closest English equivalent would be — we are fucked. We were not going anywhere. And they didn’t know when they can get another coach to continue the journey. There was another coach somewhere that would come to pick us up. In three hours or so. Luckily we could go back on the coach as smoke dispersed. No heating. Did I tell you that it was winter, Eastern European winter? Thankfully it wasn’t a proper one, minus 4 or 5 celsius. When the other coach arrived it was half full already. People had to be woken up as they occupied free seats. Not happy people. In a couple of hours, the toilet was blocked and no one could use it. Fun and games.
We were scheduled to be in Warszawa at 6 am but we were there at 10 am. I must admit, my anxiety levels go up a notch when I travel, and this journey cranked up my anxiety to the highest level. Thankfully, I didn’t tear the top of my head. I kept it cool by suppressing the anger deep in my prostate. Why prostate, some of you may ask?
Where do you keep your suppressed emotions? Kidneys? Stomach? Heart?
So where were we? Warszawa. I wanted to see that city but instead, we had forty minutes to use a toilet, wash and have breakfast. We did manage to do all of those things on time. All good what finishes well. Probably there is a better saying in English but you understand what I mean. We caught our Berlin train on time. Na Berlin! (Soviet propaganda slogan during WW2, meaning — Towards Berlin!)
You are probably asking, ‘What about the dog in the title and the picture?’ It’s coming, don’t worry.
We had this twenty-year-old Volvo, S40 model. Green. We pushed that car to the limit. We drove to Lithuania at least once. We went to Hungary and back once or twice. Every time I prayed to the gods of travellers to keep us safe, a twenty-year-old Volvo is not a car that you can call reliable. But it was.
Once we were coming back from Lithuania in December. Somewhere around Warszaw, my wife decided to put down the window of the car. The window went down but never went back up. Electric windows are convenient but not well thought through invention. I had to rip the door apart, disconnect the glass from the window lifting mechanism and manually push it back up and ram it with a piece of wood. My advice, if you travel by car, keep a roll of duct tape. It saved us from freezing our ears off.
Whilst enjoying the holidays at Balaton lake, eating watermelons and drinking palinka after heavy Hungarian dinners my wife proposed that we would go to a market. I agreed. We needed fresh vegetables and Hungarian veggies are top class, especially in summer. The next day was a market day.
By the way, Hungary is super hot in summer.
The market in the town is a large place, many things can be found there. Paprika and bedsheets, chainsaw and bird food, knock-off jeans and knock-off trainers. Puppies and kittens, chicken and geese. Almost everything is on sale in that market. We went to see puppies. I still failed to realise that this trip was planned days before. My wife and my daughter conspired to take me to the market and trick me into getting a puppy.
Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs and cats but they are a hassle. When I saw puppies in a cage waiting for their new owners my heart melted and I agreed to buy a puppy and take it back to London. My daughter was over the moon, my wife was too. We got a Puli. Hungarian shepherd dog breed.
I didn’t know that Pulis are peculiar dogs, the people they live with are their sheep. Pulis get anxious when their sheep are not together. Our dog bites our ankles when we leave the house and runs to the window to check where we are going. This breed doesn’t accept strangers, we have only one friend who is welcomed by the dog.
I didn’t know this about Pulis, I think we made a mistake taking him into our care. Today, Toni is our family, a younger child who will never grow up. We love him, we have no other choice. He is a bright light on somewhat grey days under the skies of Albion.
Almost forgot, at the end of our holidays we realised that we wouldn’t be able to get the dog into the country, it would be a couple of days too early for his rabies vaccinations to become valid. I drove back to England on my own. My family took a train to Germany a week later. I had to drive back to Europe to pick them up from Aachen.
The dog is still with us but Volvo died.
