"It took forever and it was hell!" Joan said.

"You're remembering what it was like 35 years ago,"

Joan and I were having another marital debate about traveling from England to Portugal by train. Flying looked expensive and wouldn't allow us any flexibility. I was pushing to use trains in spite of some painful memories.

"We're talking 1998 speed trains here! It's going to be totally different."

Joan finally relented with the ominous "I hope I don't have to say I told you so."

From Paris, our Eurail pass had provided us with private, window seats in luxurious, air-conditioning. The train sped smoothly and quietly south to Irun, a small border town in Spain. Before Paris, the "chunnel" Eurostar had whisked us across from England in a mere four hours. It was a bonus to discover the journey would no longer take the three full days it had in the sixties. Instead, from this place Irun, we would travel on an eight hour, night train that would land us in Madrid rested, relaxed and ready for our second and final day. Our trusty, budget-travel book had advised reserving a "couchette". It made sense. Prone was the key. With our head on a pillow, the soothing clack-clack-clack of the rails would lull us to sleep.

As we stepped to the station platform in Irun, any concerns about train travel had been pushed aside by our joyful first day. A sweltering 36 degrees centigrade swilled around us like a giant blow dryer. A nagging thought struck. What if the sleeping cars aren't air-conditioned? Nonsense! Everything is air-conditioned these days!

Hordes of young backpackers spilled from adjacent cars to join us in the Custom's lineup. "Good grief! Where did they come from?" I asked.

"They must be the under 25 group." Joan said. "Their pass isn't good for first class!"

"Lucky for us!" I said as I took in the scene around us. How had we looked 35 years ago? Dishevelled hair, grubby T-shirts, ragged shorts. "Nothing's changed" I thought. But these kids would have scorned me as an untouchable had I been wearing my old sixties backpack at that moment. I remembered mine as a huge, stain-covered canvas sack on an ugly metal frame. These were contoured, pocket upon pocket.

We flowed into the tiny station, swept along by the tide of bodies. Inside was a noisy pit of confusion. Bodies and luggage overflowed from every seat. Most of the vast, uncovered, concrete floor was likewise covered with backpackers splayed in every position. We zigged and zagged through the crowd toward a tiny, vacant space. A sudden jolt, sent me scrambling to keep my rolling bag from overturning. The wheel had caught the boot of an unsuspecting girl. She gave me a glance and pulled in her wounded foot. After a sheepish nod, I trundled by. We captured our little patch of floor and for most of an hour, became spell-bound spectators. A card game began inside a circle of packs. A crowd of readers snugged around a dim light. Everywhere there was the loud chatter and horseplay of exuberant youth. Good grief! What mistake had allowed two grandparents to end up waiting in this place? Which of these folks would share our sleeping compartment?

An hour before departure, we walked out onto the darkening platform in hopes of finding some cooler air. At this small station passengers simply walked across the exposed tracks from one platform to the next. A dirty, rather dowdy set of cars was in plain view at the next platform.

"Aha! Looks like our train is in!" I snickered. "What a battered old thing that is!"

"I wouldn't make jokes!" Joan said, "I think that's the track we leave from."

A few minutes later, heads hanging sheepishly, we rattled our bags across the darkening tracks to the ugly train. We had confirmed that this relic was ours. Behind us, the lights from the station doors and windows were like beacons. The train sat in dark silence. We scurried along the platform in search of car number 31. A sense of urgency hung between us, as if with all the other turmoil, we expected the reservation had been bungled or perhaps someone else might steal away our couchettes.

"Here it is," Joan said as she climbed aboard and hauled up her bag. We entered the narrow passage to begin our search for lower bunks 41 and 42. Two young women, carrying huge packs, had entered the car at the opposite end. At each compartment one would lean in to check bunk numbers. Midway along the passage we met.

"Have you found 26 and 27?" one asked in heavily accented English.

"I think it's one of those," Joan said, pointing back the way we had come. The first woman backed her pack into a doorway to allow us to pass. Suddenly the lights flickered to life and the hum of fans replaced the silence.

"That's better," I said in reaction to the lights, and the woman looked equally pleased. She began to pull away from the doorway, but her pack caught and wedged for an embarrassing moment. Smiling, she grunted as she yanked it free.

Inside the unplugged doorway we found our elusive numbers 41 and 42. While the other woman waited patiently, we pulled our bags into the compartment. We stood, smashed together, in the narrow space between the two tiers of three bunks unable to manoever. After some fumbling, Joan pulled her bag back into the passageway again while I wiggled mine into the shallow space under the bed. The night air had cooled but it was still uncomfortably hot.

"No air-conditioning this time." I said. "The windows have been left open."

"Remember how we used to take turns standing to change in the Volkswagon van?" Joan said. "Get ready, cause this time we do it with strangers!"

"I'm getting into my bunk just to get out of the way." I said. More voices and footsteps were filling the passageway. I sat, then ducked, as I rolled into the bunk, cursing as I cracked my knee against the bunk above. "Sardines have more room," I muttered.

Meanwhile, Joan emitted a disgruntled 'Damn!' Her bag was too fat to fit under the bunk and she had to open it and remove some stuff. Watching her gear spilling out set my mind thinking about all the things I might need for the night. We fussed with our gear, all the while expecting our four roommates to arrive.

The activity in the passageway had become close to pandemonium. I listened and watched from my bunk while Joan hung around our threshhold. A couple of passersby used our doorway as a passing lane and Joan had to back up as a pack and body eased its way in for a moment and then moved on, but still no roommates. We were both beginning to hope that some quirk of fate would allow the whole cabin to become ours.

"Seems odd that all four bunks would remain untaken," Joan said. "You'd think one or two people would show."

"There's still 20 minutes left. They'll show." I said. I was still in my bunk pondering whether I was tired enough to sleep in this stuffy, cramped space. A single sheet covered the day seat under me and it had already come loose exposing old, worn upholstery. How many noses had settled here this summer? Or worse, how many pairs of stinky feet? Should I have my feet at the other end? No, the pillow was here. I'd pull the top sheet up, turn my back to the outside, take a couple of whiffs of seat upholstery and be out for the count.

"Well it sure ain't the Ritz," I said, "But whatever you say, lying down has got to be better than sitting up."

"Don't plan to visit the bathroom too often, have you seen it?"

"The bathroom I can live with, I just hope it cools down when the train gets moving. The air in here's like a bad-smelling sauna!"

A lady with two children and a toddler suddenly appeared in our doorway. They chattered in French as they examined the numbers on the bunk. The train began to move. My view from the bunk was all waists and thighs except for the toddler who looked straight in at me. He wasn't happy. One hand clung to his mother's clothes while the other waved inside my space.

"Mama, mama, papa," he cried looking directly at me.

"Papa, papa!" I said smiling at him.

"Papa" he said.

"Papa" I said. He smiled at the game we played. The other two children disappeared into the top bunks. The father arrived. Joan made it known that she spoke French and agreed to let the mother and baby take her bottom bunk. The mother had stowed most of the gear and was beginning to change the baby when the conductor arrived to check tickets. The father was hovering near the door and immediately began a heated debate with the conductor in French. The conductor was a miserable, unsmiling grouch. He was angry with the Frenchman.

"He going to keep our railpasses until morning," Joan translated.

I was immediately filled with mistrust. Why should he need to keep our passes overnight? We needed to use them several more times. It was Joan's school teacher-voice that began nattering at him in French. The tickets and passes where clutched in his hand mere inches from my face while the heated debates raged above. With mounting concern, I reached out and snatched back our passes.

For a moment the argument swung back to the outraged Frenchman. A sudden calm ensued. In clear English for all to hear, the conductor said, "No! 'Por Favor'. The train is full. There is no more space!" He looked down at me and said, "Please." His hand was out for the passes which I handed over without further argument.

As he turned to go the wife whispered a remark to her husband I would later find out was, "He's a racist!"

The other pieces of conversation were gradually revealed. The French father wanted both lower bunks. "Either they move or we do!" he had said. Caught in this atmosphere of tension, we faced the wall and attempted sleep. The train thundered on through the steamy night.

When I awoke for my two o'clock bathroom visit, the air in our compartment smelled like the inside of my shoes. The bright, passageway lights glowing around our door allowed me to easily distinguish the mother and tiny, curled-up baby, sleeping in the opposite bunk. The noise of the train was overwhelming. This was no high-speed, smooth-riding glider. As I fumbled with my shoes, a mean bump almost sent me to the floor. This was a rival for the wildest midway ride! I slid back the compartment door. Welcome fresh air and light hit me full force. As I walked, the noise and lurching felt more intense. This steel machine was crashing hell-bent through the darkness as if to escape from God knows what!

Inside the tiny washroom, I was glad for my shoes since the floor was a pit of damp grunge. I eyed the sloshing toilet bowl. Water had overflowed during some of the train's more wild swings and left the floor puddled and the seat damp. No one could possibly hit the mark from a standing position so I began wiping the seat with one hand while I steadied myself with the other. The wild clacking of the wheels entered through the small open window. A deafening echo reverberated inside the small chamber. Shell-shocked but happy, I made my way back to bed. A stretch of smooth track had calmed the water in the bowl during my brief perch.

When I awoke, rays of sun were flashing around our curtain, touching one place and then another with streaks of light. No one was moving and the train still banged along at breakneck speed. My watch said less than an hour to Madrid. Could it be that we'd made it? Portugal was only a few hours away. As the train slowed we discretely packed our things and turned the compartment over to our awakening roommates. My last glimpse, as I slid the door closed, was the warm baby curled against his mother.

"I had a pretty good sleep," Joan said. "Lying down is definitely better."

"But next time we fly." I said.

Dave Foster, 1998