Everywhere there are horror stories, warnings about what not to do just when you share that that is your route, the path you were planning on taking: a sleeper car on the way to Vienna arriving at dawn.  Don’t do it, don’t do it.  You will be robbed. One girl talks of a whole train that was gassed, passengers awakening the next morning hung over and groggy, where are we, what happened.  No one knows, but I don’t believe it.

I try to arrive, early morning, light just beginning to rise, the city or town drunk with sleep shaking themselves awake to stare at the view.  How do they make their lives?  In the mornings, the cobblestones are empty, the shops shuttered; the tourists with their selfie sticks, smiling fake smiles on the edge of a wall, reminding me of my childhood photos grinning forced at the command: Say cheese.  How many family photos –all of us lined up in our matching outfits, painstakingly sewn by hand, still somehow managing to look less than.  I watch the Japanese, others, everyone constant, camera at ready; what if I turn the corner and miss something: there it is and gone.