The Girls on the Train

I was playing in a very small town where there really wasn't much to do besides go get a coffee, which I did about every single day. On our first weekend off, a couple of my teammates and I decided to take full advantage and spend our weekend adventuring in the city. We took the train early the next morning and spent the next two days trying out new restaurants, site-seeing, and drinking more coffee. By the end of the weekend, it felt like we just finished playing a tournament; we walked so much that we were exhausted. We finally made our way to the train station and caught the last train back to our small town.

We all got on the train and were in and out of consciousness because we were so tired. We were about an hour and a half into our train ride (half way home) when we made a longer stop. This wasn't unusual; the trains usually stop for about ten minutes at some of the stops to allow for exchanges. I felt like it was unusually quiet on the train though when one of the conductors popped his head around the corner of our seats and started speaking in a different language. I asked him if he spoke English? He said, "Train stops here. You must get off." GREAT! We asked where we were supposed to go and he said platform three. So the three of us grabbed our stuff and ran as fast we could to platform three. We arrived with little time to spare. We found some open seats and then went back to sleep.

A woman came by shortly after to check our tickets, she looked at mine for longer than usual with a slightly confused look on her face and then proceeded to hand it back to me and continue on her way. We made several stops and the train appeared to stay just as full which was weird for a Sunday night heading towards our small town. We were about thirty minutes from home when the train stopped and my teammate asked, "Isn't this town near the city?" I looked out the window at the name on the train station. It was definitely the name of the town near the city, but that couldn't be because we were almost home. OH MY GOD, WE'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY. Another woman was coming by to check tickets so we asked her which direction the train was going. Sure enough, it was headed to the city. We got on the wrong train. This kind woman didn't speak any English, but tried her hardest to help us.

Unfortunately, there were no more trains going out that night. I think I almost cried. All I wanted was my bed. I was emotional and exhausted. We arrived back at the city at the time we should have been arriving home. We purchased new train tickets for the following day (we tried to get a discount, but they didn't care about our sad story) and then proceeded to walk back to the hostel we stayed at all weekend. We paid for another nights stay and slept for about four hours before walking back to the train station. We caught the first train back and made sure there were no connections for us to mess up. I had never been so happy to see our small town!