Greecey Times

I barely remember what I did in Greece.  I remember mosquitoes, I remember being incredibly sick, and I remember staying in a town right next to the town where Patrick Leigh Fermor was living and I had no idea and only found out after I got back to Budapest and I was kicking myself that I didn't try to captialise on this and kicked myself especially hard after he passed the following spring.  That about sums up Greece.  

What I do remember is my trip back to Budapest and the atrocious sleep I had on the train going back to Athens.  Or from Athens to Thessaloniki.  In any case I was packed into a cabin and it was such a bad sleep and the train was ultimately late and I was so disoriented in the morning I accidentally-on-purpose took the top-sheet with me from the train, and to be fair I have since made great use of it, and have certainly washed it more times than I suspect Greek Rail is wont to.

In Thessalon, I had almost an entire day to spend because the delayed train meant I missed the day train to Belgrade and had to wait for the evening express.  As taking night trains to Belgrade is somewhat becoming my forte I had no problem with this and the opportunity to see the capital of Macedonia.  The other Macedonia.  The Greek Macedonia.

If I'm honest I don't really know how I filled my day in Thessalon.  There was a waterfront, there were a few cafes, there was a bus depot under construction.  I think I was so tired from the train ride that I didn't exactly have a lot of energy to expend.  Falling asleep in a park like a homeless person is all I ever really want to do in any situation anyway, so Thessalon's abundance of greenspace fit my needs.

What I remember most fondly was returning to the station to catch my train and getting out onto the platform.  The station was under construction with a lack of signage so I had to play at a bit of guesswork to determine which train would be mine.  All the German-funded and sleek Greek Rail turbo trains seemed a little too sleek and German-funded to be taking me north, and then I spotted my ride, three badly graffitied cars with broken windows attached to a tank of an engine cast off to the side on a lonely spur line.  The train to Belgrade.  I couldn't wait.

 The ride was pretty uneventful and extremely comfortable, as I slept in a cabin with a Roma family (we collectively folded down all the seats and made an enormous pen) who de-trained in Skopje.  Or somewhere in Macedonia.  I was asleep when they departed.  Then I arrived in Belgrade in the wee hours of the morning, stepped right off the train onto track 2 and hopped right onto the immediately departing train to Budapest on track 3 (like, it was actually leaving.  It had started moving).  This was the most seamless transition of my entire life.   I settled into a cabin and hastily excused myself for casually ricochetting off Belgrade once again.