The greatest pyrotechnic celebration I’ve ever seen. For 5 days each year, the people of Valencia, Spain celebrate the coming of spring with a cultural festival like no other.

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Barcelona´s new Sants station is beautiful, so easy to navigate between the Metro and train.

I sit next to an older woman. She´s been carrying her Scottish Terrier from her home in San Fransisco. She´s going to house sit for a friend in Spain. I tell her how my plane in NYC in was turned back from taxiing on the runway. Apparently dry ice had shifted in the cargo bin and was dangerously close to the pets in cargo. She shivers. Her dog barks. She asks me how I´ve handled nearly 30 hours of train travel. I´ve actually enjoyed it, I explain. Zoning out, napping, listening to my I-pod, reading. Having a front row seat to study the landscape. Having time to meet and converse with fellow travelers. It´s been a good ride.

Arrival in Valencia
Each city corner is exploding with firecrackers in preparation for the Fallas. Dreariness and excitement battle inside of me. I seek out my hotel. Naptime. Dreariness, for the moment, wins out.

Lyon - Montpellier

A French woman sitting next to me offers to share her celebrity magazines. I attempt to translate some words, but instead we play a game of charades describing the escapades of Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and Lindsey Lohan.

Montpellier - Barcelona

In a train compartment that looks like it came from the set of Boogie Nights. All 70s: Earth tones and large modular seats. I expected to see a shag rug.

Just as I think that my last 24 hours on a train is too much, a woman next to me recounts how she spent 50 hours traveling in the back of a vegetable truck in Morocco. I´m reminded that everything is relative.

Arrival in Zurich
We arrive late in Zurich. My grogginess seems perfectly matched with the overcast weather. I miss my connection. A Swiss agent helps me re-route myself. She tells me to spend the day in Zurich, enjoy the city. I look out the window and see raindrops. I´m thinking of Spanish sunshine. I go on.

Zurich - Geneve
The elderly Swiss man looks big-eyed out the train window, his head bopping to the sights: fog lifting out of valleys, water cascading down rocks, birds encircling tree lines, families emerging from chatlets. Hairs stem from his ears, an oversized cargo jacket engulfs his frail body, and a red plaid cap covers his forehead. He watches out the window with all the delight of a school child. This can´t be the first time he´s taken this train. Maybe he fears he won´t have so many opportunities more? Next to him a young woman sleeps.

There´s a big car show in Geneve today. That´s why the train is crowded, the woman next to me says. She gets off at the next stop. I use the car show as an ice breaker for the rest of the ride. ¨Are you going to the car show?¨ Nearly everyone is.

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I´m beginning the longest train trip I´ve ever embarked on. Budapest to Valencia, Spain. Schedule says about 30 hours on the train, with 3 connections. Sounds daunting, but I´m excited.

Tonight I´m on a night train. I walk into my sleeping cabin, but there are 2 other people there. Seems crowded, and there are empty cabins. I re-assign myself. The steward, however, wants me in my assigned cabin. The woman has left, apparently she was in the wrong cabin. But still, I think what a waste to have these empty cabins, and this thought wakes me up in the middle of the night, along with the odor from the man´s socks sleeping across from me.

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