Kept safe.

My pack was at my feet and I was happily reading, whiling away the time in a tiny semi-abandoned train station on the border of Hungary and Croatia.

A loud male voice startled me out of my book; when I looked up a uniformed man was staring down at me.

Seemed to me he wanted to see my ticket or maybe my passport. I produced both quickly. It was, after all, about 10 days after the attacks on New York, so it seemed to me that the extra precautions were understandable.

He looked quickly at both, then spoke to me in a rattle of Hungarian. My last name is Hungarian so I suppose he was hoping that I would understand.

Not a word registered.

He sat down beside me.

Slowly slowly we started communicating. Mostly by me drawing in my notebook. A really poor map of my travels to date seemed to interest him, as well as my hand drawn map of North America in which I had pin pointed where I lived. Then suddenly he spoke again and finished his sentence with a loud, "BOOM!"

He grabbed my book and drew out the Twin Towers and airplanes and looked expectantly at me. "Boom!" He repeated.

I could only shake my head and look sad, but that seemed to satisfy him.

Around this time I was starting to get hungry (hungry in Hungary!), so I motioned eating and drinking. He understood.
Picking up my bag, he motioned for me to follow him. Out into the dark and deserted night we went.

On the other side of this little train station was a wee cafe. He bought me a sandwich and a beer and kept me company as I ate.

Another security guard had come up and they had a quick conversation, presumably about me from the glances, and satisfied, the other fellow moved on.

Before I was done my repast though, a small knot of old men who had been sitting in the corner smoking and drinking motioned 'my' guard over to their table. There was lots of loud words exchanged and much gesticulating.

The guard came back to me hurriedly and picked up my pack and hustled me out of there very quickly.

Back to my wooden bench, pack at my feet.

This guard continued to sit with me the entire time I waited for my train that night. He helped me with my pack when the train arrived, spoke to the porter on my behalf, helped me on the train and got me settled in.

There was a mix up with my ticket, seems I hadn't paid enough to get to Venice, but my guard helped me straighten it out with a minimum fuss and cost.

I rode the night train through Croatia and Slovenia. Every few hours guards armed with machine guns would yell and bang on the doors. "Passporto! Passporto!".

Until I returned from my trip I didn't understand why I was removed from that smoky little cafe so quickly.

Then a friend, a recent immigrant from Croatia, explained that a single woman, alone in a dark cafe must be up to no good. The old men were suspicious of me and wanted me out of their cafe.

Humph.

In retrospect, my travel tale could have ended very differently and much less pleasantly. My 'guard' may not have been legitimate. Being robbed by a uniformed 'official' is a tale that many travellers have told. That and worse.

To be honest, I hadn't considered that possibility until just now. Hmmm. Seems fortune was with me that night!

Thanks LGS, you inspired me with your own travel tale!

(oh, and unfortunately that picture isn't mine. But it IS a Hungarian train station!)