Oh, the Places You'll Go!

I know a while back I griped about train travel. Now, it's probably one of my favorite things about being in Bulgaria. Yes, it's long and seemingly cumbersome at times but I feel closer to the wanderlusters that came before me. Most recently I returned from a 7 hour trip from another volunteers house. 7 hours. That is almost as long as it will take me to get to America. However I can't complain as I didn't even have to travel the farthest. We do that here. Travel great distances just for the chance to hang out with other volunteers. We pack ourselves into each others apartments claiming beds, floor space, couches, kitchens, balconies....Wherever there is room. I never regret it. I'm lucky here, I have really good friends. I love laughing and for some reason being around these fools invokes some sort of deep guttural laugh I never knew existed inside of me. 
The way back home this past weekend was more of the more enjoyable trips I've had. Relatively speaking, I'm always excited to go somewhere but rarely excited to journey back home. I ran into a friend on the train and we went in search of a train car with more leg room. We were hesitant to join what my friend dubbed as "The Grumpy Old Men" car, but we did and spent the next 5 hours with two men that bore a similar resemblance to these guys:

One of the men was the most talkative Bulgarian I've ever come across. I don't think he stopped speaking during the 5 hours I was on the train. Our car filled up some so I was able to take naps while he regaled newcomers with his stories or interrogated them accordingly. Our conversation jumped from questions about America, to Bulgarian children's songs, to questioning why I'm a vegetarian, to a lesson on Bulgarian history. It was ridiculous, and I'm lucky that someone could share in the absurdity that the situation was. I've never had anyone pantomime snails for me before, it was incredible to watch. But this is what makes train travel exciting. Isn't that why we travel? Isn't that why we joined the Peace Corps? Not to just see the world, but to live it, to experience it. No one interacts on airplanes, the setting is hardly conducive to it, here you're sitting face to face with mere inches between you and the next person. It's more intimate. I think what I found most fascinating was towards the end of this journey one of the men got off and it was only then that I realized that the two old men had only just met. They seemed like old friends but their friendship was only that of however many hours.  When I got off the train we said our goodbyes and that was that. No trying to exchange phone numbers or emails, no concerns about whether or not he was going to try and find me on facebook. We left each other taking with us only the stories of people we met on our travels.