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On the morning of my departure from Budapest, I awoke extra early in order to catch my 8:35am train to Trieste. Despite hitting the morning rush on the subway ride to the station, I still managed to arrive with 40 minutes to spare. Since the agent did not make a seat assignment when I booked my ticket two days earlier, I had been concerned about finding a seat if the train were to be full. I needn’t have worried, though, as only one other person shared my compartment during the entire journey.

At breakfast in my hotel, I had swiped a few snacks for the trip: a slice of whole wheat bread, a bit of cheese, and an apple. I also had the sandwich and bananas that I had purchased the previous afternoon. It was going to be a really, really long day!

I settled into my window seat to watch the passing scenery. When we passed Lake Balaton, I thought at first that we had inexplicably reached the sea, for the expanse of blue was so vast that the distant horizon appeared nothing more than a blur of sky and water. The other passenger in my compartment was an older Italian gentleman who relentlessly persisted in his attempts to converse. Normally, I’d relish the chance to practice my Italian, but I was by now getting a sore, scratchy throat—the beginnings of a bad cold.

When the train pulled into the station at Zagreb, Croatia, the gentleman got off, and I would end up having the compartment all to myself for the duration of the trip. By midday, the sky turned gray and cloudy, and I tried to distract myself by reading one of the paperback novels I had packed. With each border we crossed, there was a lengthy wait as officials boarded the train and checked every passenger’s passport.

Despite the gloomy weather, I found the countryside in Slovenia to be quite lovely. The train ran alongside a river with quaint-looking houses on the opposite bank. Shortly, rain began to fall. When we stopped in Ljubljana, masses of people boarded the train, though I still remained alone in my compartment.

Finally, the train pulled into Monfalcone, Italy, where I was to make my connection to Trieste. We were running a half hour behind schedule, arriving just as my connecting train pulled into the opposite platform. Surrounded by a small crowd of people trying to make the same connection, I scrambled off the train, found the stairs to the sottopassaggio (underpass), and lugged my rolling duffel back up to the correct platform—only to watch the train pull away. We had all missed it by mere seconds! A quick check of the schedule revealed that there was, fortunately, another train to Trieste in just 10 minutes.

By the time I arrived in Trieste, it was 8:15pm. Since I had been to Trieste several times before, I knew exactly where I was going: the Residence Liberty, kitty-corner from my favorite bakery, Pasticceria Penso. It was a 20-minute walk from the station, but the rain had mostly tapered off into a light drizzle. As my sore throat was now progressing into a sneeze and runny nose, I was just happy to have finally arrived.

When I had emailed Residence Liberty the previous week to confirm my reservation, I had given them my anticipated arrival time and was assured that they would wait for me. It was thus without any qualms that I approached the apartment building and, seeing that the front door was locked, rang the bell for the reception desk. No one answered. I kept pressing the buzzer over and over, as the minutes ticked by. Still no answer. Just as I was starting to panic, the door opened. It was only a guest leaving, but he let me enter, announcing ominously that the reception had already closed. Now I truly began to panic! Sure, I felt relieved to be indoors out of the chilly night air, but I still wanted nothing more than to curl up in the comfort of what would be my bed for the next three weeks.

Steeling myself to spend my first night in the lobby, I began to look around for a place where I could at least sit down. The sound of my luggage wheels must have been startling, for just then a weary-looking older man appeared around the corner of the darkened reception desk. He looked at me as if to say, Who the hell are you? When I introduced myself, he informed me that the reception was closing in 15 minutes, at exactly 9:00pm. Apparently, he had not been privy to my previous email exchange.

Given that he actually was closing up for the night, I felt like I had dodged a bullet of monumental proportions. What if the next train had been 15 minutes later than it was? What if I had not been let into the building when no one was answering the doorbell? I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I waited for the elevator to carry me up to my apartment on the 8th floor.

As I was unpacking my essentials, I suddenly realized how hungry I was. I did have one banana left, but I wanted to save it for breakfast, since I wouldn’t be able to buy groceries until sometime the next morning. I took a quick trip out around 9:30pm, hoping to find something to eat. There was only one place open in the immediate neighborhood—a takeout pizza joint, where I got a slice with mushrooms and scarfed it down within minutes. I made it back to my apartment just as the rain began falling again, eager to crawl straight into bed.