What It’s Really Like Riding on a Train in a Sleeping Car with Your Fiance

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Abstract

d separate cars,” she said.</p><p id="d1a2">The train was set up into single-person bunks. So, we took the top bunks and let her have the bottom bunks to herself. The blankets were probably as old as the communist train we were riding. Still, they were clean and neatly folded.</p><p id="d528">We watched the world go by on the top perch. Then, I dozed off. My fiance woke me up right at sunrise. “Look we are getting close!” I couldn’t tell by looking how close we were, but my watch said we had about an hour left till arrival. I took that time to check for upteenth time if all the paperwork we needed was still there. It was.</p><p id="d2e9">Then, we finally pulled into the train station in Bucharest. We wormed our way through the crowds and the outdoor market stands and made it through the station to the main road. We caught a taxi and raced through traffic to the other side of town to make our appointment at the Embassy.</p><p id="549c">We waited outside the building, across the road in what looked like a line-up for a carnival ride. Then they called our names and we went inside.</p><p id="d9ef">They called us up individually. They asked me who I was going to marry, when he was born, and how we met. They asked him my parents' names and other questions.</p><p id="c0cc">We left with a paper saying we could marry. However, his visa to get married in the States could take 3 months to a year and a half to get approved. They warned us it may not be approved at all.</p><p id="1b98">We were still young and optimistic, so we made wedding plans for a Texas wedding nine months out.</p><p id="ad3b">However, in real life, the sleeping car looks different than the films, and sometimes the train takes you the opposite direction to get where you need to be. After six months of waiting, it was time to put down deposits in the U.S., but all we heard was silence.</p><p id="f07f">We ended up changing having to change the plan.

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Instead of a simple Texas breakfast wedding, we got married in Romania on the only date still available — lucky 13.</p><div id="557a" class="link-block"> <a href="https://medium.com/@AlexPraytor/membership"> <div> <div> <h2>Join Medium with my referral link - Alex Praytor</h2> <div><h3>As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*_rUWv_NramMbp96z)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><h2 id="d84f">More by the author:</h2><div id="96a9" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/i-planned-a-wedding-that-never-happened-8d462ed54503"> <div> <div> <h2>I Planned a Wedding That Never Happened</h2> <div><h3>I married a week later at a location 5,800 miles away</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*UowMCa9s3EBHZoaenujbXw.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="887e" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/love-is-81f9e18a7218"> <div> <div> <h2>Love Is…</h2> <div><h3>A Poem</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*r9FEBbCHZqIck3SuJlS_8w.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

At least it sounds romantic.

When I was 29, I took a train with a sleeping car for the first time with my fiance.

I’d never been on a sleeping car before, but I’d seen it in the movies. It sounds fun, adventurous, romantic. I was living in Europe and didn’t have a car. Partly because I hadn’t planned on staying in Europe for longer than 10 months.

But, then Girl met Boy. In order to make our union legal, we needed the American embassy to sign off on papers.

The American embassy was 6 hours away, but about 9 hours with the train. We got our appointment at the embassy, took a day off work, and left at night to make it to the 9:00 am appointment.

We couldn’t afford the private sleeping car and sleeping with six others sounded like too many. So, we settled on the car that slept four. “You could get lucky and get the room to yourselves,” the ticket office person winked.

In Romania, you often have to ride the train the opposite direction to get where you want to go. That’s the way the route goes. So, we rode three hours into the night and then they added the sleeping car to the passenger train. We headed to our room.

We didn’t “get lucky” that night. An older lady greeted us and was a little scandalized. “Back in my day men and women had separate cars,” she said.

The train was set up into single-person bunks. So, we took the top bunks and let her have the bottom bunks to herself. The blankets were probably as old as the communist train we were riding. Still, they were clean and neatly folded.

We watched the world go by on the top perch. Then, I dozed off. My fiance woke me up right at sunrise. “Look we are getting close!” I couldn’t tell by looking how close we were, but my watch said we had about an hour left till arrival. I took that time to check for upteenth time if all the paperwork we needed was still there. It was.

Then, we finally pulled into the train station in Bucharest. We wormed our way through the crowds and the outdoor market stands and made it through the station to the main road. We caught a taxi and raced through traffic to the other side of town to make our appointment at the Embassy.

We waited outside the building, across the road in what looked like a line-up for a carnival ride. Then they called our names and we went inside.

They called us up individually. They asked me who I was going to marry, when he was born, and how we met. They asked him my parents' names and other questions.

We left with a paper saying we could marry. However, his visa to get married in the States could take 3 months to a year and a half to get approved. They warned us it may not be approved at all.

We were still young and optimistic, so we made wedding plans for a Texas wedding nine months out.

However, in real life, the sleeping car looks different than the films, and sometimes the train takes you the opposite direction to get where you need to be. After six months of waiting, it was time to put down deposits in the U.S., but all we heard was silence.

We ended up changing having to change the plan. Instead of a simple Texas breakfast wedding, we got married in Romania on the only date still available — lucky 13.