My overnite train first takes me to Prague, where I will connect onto Dresden. Arriving at Hlavni station at 6:30 am, the train station´s casino is fully lit with all of the bells and whistles running at full speed.

I´m seeing a lot of these small casinos in train stations in Eastern Europe. It´s an apt metaphor for Eastern Europe´s gamble on its future as it climbs out of Communism: Capitalism, please make us rich, but don´t let us lose it all.

I’m surprised at the number of people on the train. Most cabins are packed, and I’m hearing different dialects of German being spoken around me. One man explains that the reason this train is so packed is because it is one of the few that will go straight onto Munich after Salzburg.
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I step into my cabin, expecting Huey, Duey and Louie to join me. How would one ever know which height head rest to reserve?

I move myself in the train car to another seat, before someone shows me how easily the seat head rests can be moved up or down.

I thought I’d be napping on this train, but the outside views are too beautiful to close my eyes to – steeples, hilltop villages, and mountain cliffs surround the train as it speeds along the tracks.

Once on the train to Innsbruck, the train slows a bit as it passes through mountains. We’re going through a snowstorm!

It’s really wondrous to experience from inside the train, passing through these picturesque towns and villages covered in snow. I’d recommend a snowy train trip to anyone. This storm hardly slowed the train down. We were only 15 minutes late.

At the train transfer in Geneva, I experience customs control. I wearily approach them, the last night’s melatonin still in my body.
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Coming from America, a melting pot so relatively young, I’ve always been drawn to Europe; it’s patchwork of preserved cultural identities and old-world mystique. So many ideas, so many peoples, within a day trip from each other.

I’ve flown around here before to study, to trace family lineage, and to vacation. But never have I traveled Europe in perhaps the way it was designed to be traveled: By train. Border-by-border, culture-by-culture, perception-by-perception.

For the past seven years, I’ve toiled in the modern media world of New York City. While on Fellowship, this is my year to explore the pulsating vibe of everything new in the old world of Europe.

As I go along, I’ll update this blog with travel insights and Train Tips to spur the thoughts of those of you on-board, and those of you dreaming of getting on-board.

This is my Journey. What’s yours?