Two things caught my eye on this train trip today: The two Japanese women leafing through menus, and the bright yellow flowers they would point at outside the train window.
The younger woman teaches Japanese in Budapest. She’s taking the older woman, a visiting family, to Vienna for lunch for the afternoon. What an incredible idea, I think, to be able to cross a country’s border for lunch.
The yellow flowers they ooohhh and aaahhh at are impressive. Fields of these bright yellow flowers seem to follow us the entire journey. At first, I thought they might be sunflowers, but they are too small. I’m told that these are rapeseeds, used to make canola oil.
The two women have rather detailed guidebooks and printed internet menus. They have a full afternoon of food-sampling ahead of them, they explain. So as the train pulls into Vienna 30 minutes late, they are hurry off the train, not wanting to miss a moment of noshing.
Train Tip: Be careful with trains traveling from Eastern Europe. My experience has been that they are routinely late – nothing dramatic, 20-30 minutes at times. But more so than trains in Western Europe. And those minutes can make all the difference if you are connecting trains.
Benjamin Thomas
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