Bucharest-Oostende (part 1)

For reasons I can't reveal right now my little family needed to take the train from Bucarest-Romania to Oostende-Belgium. Georgiana, Luca and me and loaded with 4 suitecases, a travelling bed and a buggy, entered the station of Bucharest at 16.50 in search of line 5. That line was still empty. The train was expected to leave at 17.10 and did arrive yet. It gave us some time to spend our Romanian coins and make a little stock of drinks and snacks. My wiffy was very excited about this trip and this for several reasons: she loves to travel by train - she loves the night train (wich this was - we were heading for the first stop on our trip, Vienna. Yes, we should arrive in Vienna around 09.00 were we have to spend the day untill 18.00 to take our next night train to Köln but that's another episode of this story. In the meanwhile our train arrived and we could go in search of our sleeping compartment wich we reserved the day before. I was a little concerned about Luca who was about 5 month old at the time. I didn't know how he would be able to sleep on the train especially that he had to stay in the buggy. When we entered our compartment I saw that there was space to put the buggy in between the beds and that we would be able to have a decent rest ourselves. The beds where clean and big enough. We strapped our lugagge and made ourselves comfortable for the trip. I started to wonder about the view going through Romania, Hungaria and Austria and about the border controles during the night. Will they wake up Luca? How will we warm his bottle, etc. The train took off, the sun was still shining and once we where out of Bucarest the view was great. Luca didn't seem to mind. He enjoyed the rocking and the sound of the train. We had some improvised dinner but the location and the company made it romantic as well as adventurous. Georgiana told me about former trips she made by train, people she met, places she went and I felt stupid and lucky in the same time because I didn't go anywhere yet and now I was shown the world in a complet other way that I would ever have tought.
We put Luca's buggy in sleeping position and soon he was dreaming. The night slowly took the place of the day and by the time we would be at the border with Hungaria it would be dark.
We decided to turn in early taking account of the fact that we would be awake a few times during the night and to be fresh for our day in Vienna. Soon we where at the border. I don't remember the name of the town and I would't be able to write it anyway. We heard the borderpatrol, Romanian side, entering the wagon and knocking everybodie's door. I quickly opened ours before he knocked and presented them our passports. They never saw before the Belgian passport we had for Luca, mumbled something, checked if Luca was looking like his picture and gave us our passports back. About 15 minutes later the same ritual happened with the Hungarian border patrol. Luca didn't wake up. He was warm and cosy and didn't care. Mom and dad would take care of it. Normally, I wouldn't have told you that the same thing happened at the border with Austria, o, both sides, if it wasn't for something I witnessed that I found very funny. The other officers where of a normal hight and when they where checking the airshafts above the compartments to see if there were no clandestine passengers they needed a ladder but not in Austria! They had a guy of more than 2 m tall who had to bend to be able to walk in the train and who opened the shaft just like that to look inside of them standing straight.
Anyway, we had another three hours to go before arriving in Vienna so we decided to try and sleep. Luca still didn't wake up so we were very pleased. I didn't sleep to much and way before the speaker announced our arrival in Vienna we where prepared. Luca was feeling great after a good night of sleep. The restaurant compartment warmed up his bottle for us so his little belly was happy to. My wiffy got of the train with a smile on her face. I think she's secretly in love with Vienna. We stocked our lugagge in storing space of the station and walked into the impressive and majestic streets of Austria's capital in search of breakfast. The rest you will or will not read tomorrow. Read ya then!