Your guide to European Rail Stations

Tips for the great unwashed

The ability to get around large amounts of the continent by simply jumping
on a train is, astounding. It is also good to know that no matter where
you go, European rail stations are always the same:

Fast Food. Don't panic, your saturated fat-laden diet is safe here. You
won't have to worry about mysterious herring salads anymore. Just keep
looking and you will find any or all of a McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Hut
and or Burger King.

Backpackers. They will always be there standing in line for a ticket or
washing their underwear in the water fountains. You get no points for
spotting them. They are in fact a piece by the artist in residence at
the Stockholm Institute of Anthropological studies. If you approach them,
carefully, they will be quite friendly and you can ask them for a guide to
the installation. They will never speak in your language.

Tickets. There will be a line, and the staff will continue hate you, just
get over it. In fact, ticket staff are a classic demonstration of the
difference between 'nice' and 'polite'. Only a seasoned station attendant
can perform their public role with such practiced disdain. How else can
they sell you a ticket and at the same time make perfectly clear that you
are ruining their day by not only asking them for something, but also
getting them to speak English.

Drink the water, It is good for you

Don't drink the coffee, it is made with that water you just drank.

Pee. Somewhere, when you least expect it, you will find yourself near a
corner that smells of rancid urine. I'm still not sure how the managers
of rail stations have not made the connection between making people pay to
use a toilet (or locking them completely) and why their buildings reek of
yesterdays beer.

Dogs, they run a close second to the 'packers. I don't know why it freaks
me out, but there is always someone leading their dog through the station.
I'm thinking is because they like the smell of pee.

Empty first class. I'm also perplexed as to why there is a first class
section of any train. As far as I can tell, the kind of people that can
afford first class are also the kind of people that would want to be as
far as possible from a place full of junk food, backpackers, dogs and
smells of pee. Yet there are all these nice and shiny carriages just
waiting for Madame DuPont to turn up with her three steamer trunks, furs
and personal assistant.

All I can assume is that first class is actually a form of purgatory, a
special hell reserved for self important upstarts who don't tip the valet
and feel it is important to send the room service back twice because it
isn't up to scratch. You want the first class treatment ? Be careful of
what you wish for.

Two tickets for Brussels, please.