Living "Murder on the Orient Express"

We’re Home! I’m currently curled up in my bed with coffee and my laptop: it feels good to be home. I have much to tell you; however, I am convinced that you cannot understand in part if you do not understand in full, so let me go back to where I left off. Since this is a rather long installment of our story, I will separate it into sections.

Headline 1: Living “Murder on the Orient Express”

Our last evening in Athens (this is day 5 of the trip if you’re wondering) was relaxing, and we were busy preparing for our early departure in the morning. As you can see in the picture below, Emily was my room partner.

Those of you who know Emily will not be surprised to hear that she is an interesting companion. While I am generally a calm person, Emily is a glutton for noise, craziness, music, and anything else she might consider fun at that moment. She brought her travel Ipod dock, and blasted Bon Jovi in my ears while I was trying to be studious and read my book. I feel very victimized… :-) Not to exaggerate, Emly is actually a pretty good roommate even if she does get a little out of hand on occasion. Alas, it happens to the best of us.

All right, moving on. Day 6 began early as we rushed to the train station. Let me just say that there is nothing I am more traumatized by than train stations. I’ve never had a really bad experience in a train station, but I have had many semi-bad experiences, which, when coupled with the overall despicable atmosphere of the place, make for very disturbing memories. Nevertheless, I survived the Athens train station, and we were on our way to Thessaloniki.

Fortunately for me, Emily read her book, which was apparently sufficiently engrossing, so I didn’t have to entertain her on the train ride:

To be honest, the ride wasn’t at all bad. The scenery captivated my imagination so that I could almost hear the Ancient Greek warriors rushing across the plains to fight the Persians. Mount Olympus did not disappoint as it ruled majestically enough over the countryside.

Thus, we arrive in Thessaloniki at 12:30pm. This brings me to another disgruntling point concerning train stations. They are inevitably in the worst possible part of town, to be perfectly clear, the ghetto. Now upon first arriving in a city, I think you will understand it is not particularly pleasant to be greeted by what looks like a scene from West Side Story. Therefore, train stations are entirely beyond redemption, but that is the subject for another blog. In short, let me convey the message that we arrived in Thessaloniki; it wasn’t pretty, but we arrived.

After wandering around the ghetto for a few moments and being sufficiently disgusted, overwhelmed, upset or distressed as was appropriate to each situation, we began to wind our way into what looked like a less disturbing area. This area too, however, provided its fair share of ghetto-ish material. All hope seemed lost as we waded through what should be titled: “Survivor: Train Station Edition”. Yes, it was that bad!

We reached our lowest point. We knew we could sink no lower.

The ravenous ghetto threatened to engulf us in its devouring jaws, but salvation was at hand. Yes, I tell you, the cloudy skies parted, a beam of sunlight radiantly burst through, and the angels started singing (to the tune of the “Hallelujah Chorus”), “Starbucks, Starbucks, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah . . .”


Refreshed, rejuvenated, and completely overwhelmed by the sheer magnanimity of the edifice, we knew at that moment we could and would survive “Survivor: Train Station Edition”. Little did we know what lie ahead as we bravely faced the otherness of the Orient. Our story in Thessaloniki had not come full circle yet, however. After momentarily basking in the comfort and familiarity of Starbucks, we were once again prepared to face the onslaught upon our departure. Our expectations in the regard were met. For as we passed out from under the roof of the known into the unknown, we sensed something instantly recognizable as “A Festival”. Let it be known that Dad NEVER under ANY circumstances passes up a festival. Like a leech, he clings to festivals with undying enthusiasm leaving the rest of us to follow in his wake.

Yes, it may seem too good to be true, but we came upon a festival as we traversed the well-worn streets of Thessaloniki. For those of you who are wondering what on earth “a festival” is in the sense of which we speak, let it suffice to say it is a mob of people crowded unceremoniously into too small a street for some unworthy reason such as live entertainment. Of course, the level to which the festival is disturbing is always directly proportionate to its size. In this case, neither its size or level of disturbing-ness was very high, and we passed through virtually unharmed.

This is where things get interesting. The festival was a sort-of “snake pit” if you will. Upon the other side of it, lay majestic beauty and joyful experience. Yet to reach this celestial state, one must pass over the snake pit, the festival. In this way, it is rather like Odysseus having to take his trip to the underworld before he could reach home. Like Odysseus, we faced unspeakable terrors before reaching our destination.

This is becoming too loquacious. Let me be brief.

We walked along the shore and I imagined Agamemnon judging between Hecuba and Polymestor saying with all due regality, "It gives me no pleasure to sit as judge on the miseries of others. But I should cut a sorry figure in the world if I allowed this case to come to court and then refused or failed to give a verdict. I have no choice" (Hecuba, Line 1240-1243). I would imagine that the weather on that day was similar to the day of our visit, cloudy but warm with just a slight breeze off the water.




As always, we never miss out on ruins or historical sights . . .



After eating a delectable meal at Ruby Tuesday’s, we headed back towards the beloved train station. By this point, Thessaloniki had very nearly redeemed itself in our eyes. Once we got into its nicer areas, it wasn’t a bad city, just ruff around the edges. We tried to imagine Paul preaching there and writing his letters to the Thessalonians, which heightened the city’s status in our minds greatly.

Back at the train station, it was, well, a train station. Need I say more? Looking back I realize we thought as soon as we got out of the station and onto the train things would be good and we could go to sleep peacefully. What foolish naïve people we were. The station in all its horrific brutality was only the beginning. We boarded the train, but it was no normal train. This train was probably used during World War II. I swear, it was THAT OLD! And believe me, people, this thing did not age well! You know those people who age by wrinkling up into a prune and looking unmistakably if unintentionally scraggly. They’re the people who have weathered life or been weathered by life, whichever you prefer. They’ve probably smoked more cigarettes than everyone in your acquaintance put together. This train was one of those people.

Despite these imperfections on the poor soul’s visage, we were prepared to be forgiving. What the train lacked in spiffy appendages, we felt sure it could make up in a good nights sleep. So you see, we were far from hastily judgmental, but endeavored to show patience and forbearance. Our saintly attitudes, however, were checked by our neighbors on the train. Emily and I were once again sharing a room (or rather a sleeping compartment). Our neighbors were two very strange men, whom we felt very certain could be up to no good. They were unusual enough to arouse suspicion, and friendly, too friendly (cue devilishly frightening music in a minor key). Bolting our door against the severe reality of the situation, Emily and I prepared to sleep. Now to fully understand the events of the train ride, you must have a clear picture in your mind of our compartment’s layout.

Upon first walking through the door, you had about three feet in front of you before hitting the window and the width of the space allowed for a human body to squeeze in with hardly any extra room. Above, on the right and left were two small beds (if they could actually be called beds) very close to the ceiling, which was quite low. To reach the beds, there was a little ladder, which could be placed facing the door in the small walking space described above. As you can then imagine, one could either have the ladder out or open the door, but not both at once. Yet to reach one’s bed, one needed the ladder.

With this picture in mind, you can no doubt see Emily and I in this compartment. Bracing ourselves to endure the journey in a way that might salvage as much of our pride as possible, we hunkered down for the night. By “hunkering down”, I mean we climbed cautiously up the rickety ladder and lie very stiffly and tentatively on the “bed”. Emily was in a state of high distress over our neighbors, who you must not forget lurked ever around the door causing an agitation by no means undue. She worked herself up so successfully, that she simply refused to have the light turned off. So there we lay, still in our clothes, stiffly attempting to rest on the bed, the light on, our unruly neighbors lurking just our of sight, and the strange odor from the centuries of use the train had received wafting ever upward to our bed of woe. It is a picture you will I’m sure receive no end of enjoyment from imagining as you sit comfortably at your computer desk in your familiar home. Yet as you find your enjoyment at our expense, please imagine the sheer grimness of our situation.

To enhance the pity you should be feeling on our account at this point, here are a few pictures. Notice the damp, dark, dank, distressing atmosphere by which we are surrounded.


So we finally start to fall asleep—sort of. As soon as I’m asleep, however, I hear pounding on the door. Thinking, “Oh great, what now?” I quickly start towards the door. Now you’ll remember the floorplan I described above . . . in order to open the door, I had to climb down the rickety ladder without falling off and breaking my neck, move the ladder out of the way, unlock the door lock which was stuck, and then open the door. It was NOT a pretty sight. With much ado, I reached the door and opened it to find the police. At this point, I am thinking we are at the border going through Turkish Customs. The policewoman shines a bright light in my face while looking at my passport and then asks about the “other person”. I motion towards Emily, who is asleep. Once the woman is satisfied that Emily is the person in the passport, she leaves, and I quickly re-lock the door before the aforementioned neighbors come out of their room.

I go through the reverse of the getting off the bed process. As soon as I close my eyes and begin to drift off to sleep, our door opens and I hear loud talking and goings on in the hallway. The person didn’t enter but they opened the door and started to enter. Apparently, something went wrong with the lock when I tried to lock it before, so they were able to just walk in. With a startled exclamation, I quickly start the process of descending from my loft to see what’s happening. At this point, Emily has been awakened and is almost reduced to tears because she thinks the neighbors are trying to barge in on us, but she is also laughing hysterically at the spectacle of me trying to get to the door. The getting to the door process was literally like a ropes course!

I open the door to find Dad standing outside. He had been sitting in the hall waiting for the police to return our passports when two people started entering our room. They apparently had the same room number in the next car and thought it was their room. When they began opening the door, Dad had quickly exclaimed, “That’s not your room,” explaining the commotion I had heard.

Swiftly closing and locking the door, I commenced “operation get into bed”. Once again staring up at the foreboding ceiling above me, I began to drift towards sleep. Just as my eyes closed, “BANG! BANG! BANG!” on the door. Thinking to myself, “You have got to be kidding me!” I hop, rattle, and squeeze . . . to the door. On the other side, two men are glaring at me while shining a flashlight in my face. Before I got my wits about me, I thought for sure this was not a good sign and the train had been hi-jacked by terrorists or something. I soon came to the conclusion that they too were actually police although I didn’t even want to know why there were more police on the train after we had already gone through immigration. I later found out that the first police sweep was to exit Greece and the second was to enter Turkey, but at the time, this did not occur to me. The men once again glared at me while scouring my passport, etc.

They finish with me and leave, but we soon hear them tell Dad in a gruff voice, “Put on your shoes and come with me!” So we are more than a little distressed at what is going on out there! Helpless to do anything, however, we just sat there and eventually Dad came back. He said they took him to a little one-room building, which was completely stark with nothing on the walls. Right in the middle sat a desk with a man behind it. Dad says he sat down, the man pulled out his briefcase, Dad gave him money for visas, the man gave him the visas, and Dad left. Not a word was spoken. It was literally out of one of those war movies! Outside the building, people were being hauled off the train because the Turks refused to let them in while other people who had attempted to gain entrance to Greece unsuccessfully were being loaded onto the train.

After all of this, we lay down and pretended that none of the experience was actual reality. We got an hour or two of sleep before morning came. When we got up, we decided to go to the dining car for breakfast. Although we traversed the entire train, no dining car was to be found. We had seen it the night before, but it merely disappeared adding another mysterious occurrence to the many we had already seen.
We pulled into Istanbul around 9:00am, and we could successfully say it had been the most intriguingly frightening night of our existence. Once off the train, we realized we had pulled into the very train station where the legendary Orient Express finished its eastward journey.

This comprehension may have helped us put the events of the hours of darkness into perspective. For we lived Agatha Christie’s acclaimed novel. True, our version lacked a murder, but with our neighbors lurking around we feared there would be a murder. Or perhaps our version should be entitled “Suicide on the Orient Express”. After a night like that, the suicide version might be more appropriate.

In any case, as this installment ends, we have thankfully reached Istanbul. The story is not over yet though. I’ll be back with more.