Every time I get on a train, I think I should be writing. There I am, on a short little journey, and instead of thinking about other things, my brain fills up with some Jane Eyre-esque narrative that I can't shake. Look at me, with my stupid little stories, pretending to be a writer. I do write, every day, and somehow I have logged thousands of words, tens of thousands of words, but it does not happen on a train. What am I supposed to do? Open up my laptop, stare meaningfully out the window, main character/ ‘person who's convinced you're obsessed with her’ style? I can barely get myself together on a train, there's my bag, slipping off its shoulder, me grabbing onto my knitting at every stop. I think, who is doing this? Do other people get on a train and have irrational thoughts about writing pages and pages? Are people really writing on trains?

**

Do you want a story about a train? Here's a story about a train:

In the film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayeinge, the leads Raj and Simran* spend considerable amounts of time on train platforms, in the compartments between the seats, and just generally, attempting to navigate the rail system in Europe.

*Am I really explaining this film? Apparently I am. It is so grating that I am doing this that I am even annoying myself. I can't recall which trip this was -- there haven't been that many -- but I was once taking the subway in New York or DC and overheard a young desi explain the plot of DDLJ (with the appropriate enthusiasm) to a white guy (who did not seem wholly convinced, but was putting on a good show) and my friends, I cannot describe to you how much I wanted to chime in, mostly to applaud the effort she was putting into this.

Last month, I also found myself on a train platform -- many train platforms -- and squeezed into a compartment next to the loo, along with six other people. Would it be nicer with Shah Rukh? Sure, but it was actually, also, surprisingly fun.

This was my first, 'ooh, this residence card means I can travel anywhere in EU now?' trip, to make a trek to Berlin to 1) see Fran Lebowitz!!!!!! 2) buy yarn*

I left in the morning of Koningsdag, got on a train to Amsterdam full of extremely loud, literally orange people, and dropped a very delicious-smelling hot sandwich somewhere between running between two platforms and finally found my seat on the train to Berlin. Anyway, so there we are, still in the Netherlands, and I'd eaten all the snacks that did not fall out of my bag, and I'd just taken my laptop out to Get Work Done, stare meaningfully out of a window at the European countryside and Write My Book when there was an announcement that the train was stopping at the next station... and not going further.

Much credit to the two extremely patient NS staffers who happened to be on duty at this train station on the sunniest of sunny days, on a public holiday, and had to now deal with a whole train full of people who just really wanted to get to Germany. They shrugged, told us they didn't have more info, would let us know when they did, and told us ... to go sit in the sun. Which would seem rude but honestly, it was the sunniest of sunny days, and it felt kind of amazing to get to peel off layers that have felt glued to me for *months*. (This isn't entirely true, I was in Pakistan doing book research in March, and it was ... *almost summer*)

As we waited, I ate everything possible in Albert Heijn and drank a cup of Albert Heijn coffee (....) and sat down the steps of the train station to knit my sweater when a teenager walked past and said something about people sitting on the steps -- at which a person got annoyed and said something back to him. Anyway, the person and I got to talking. We talked about the train and how we were ever going to get on to the next one. I ran across the platform to the loo. We waited, and waited, and we made small talk and laughed, and it turns out, the two people I'd spent an hour talking to... were also going to see Fran. What won me over, more than anything, is that they also said Fran in the same kind of voice I'd been using for days, in this throwaway kind of way, because its not the kind of thing you expect anyone to recognise, except, here, on this train platform technically not in the middle of nowhere, here we were: three people who were now hurtling across borders to see Fran. (And were also sensible enough to travel a day *ahead.*)

The next train arrived, we all clambered on and of course there were no seats. So for the next few hours, crammed into a compartment on the floor, I thought about knitting, and Fran Lebowitz, and Shah Rukh Khan, and I did see a bit of the German countryside from the flashes of the window every time I stood up (after my legs fell asleep. (Also, in another compartment, a man with much braver / dgaf energy than me was fully stretched out, napping) Somehow, you become really bonded as you spend several hours crammed together. I showed my knitting to two people. I looked at what other people were reading. A girl half my age was reading *Girl Interrupted* and I would tell you I felt old, but I didn't. What's the word for when you see a book that reminds you of the past but without feeling sad?

We finally got to Berlin. I got to see Fran, and it was amazing. I spent ages talking to strangers. I am not the kind of woman, I always think, who makes friends in a queue, on a train platform, but here I was, hugging these strangers of a weekend together, chatting up other strangers in the queue. The weekend felt charmed in a way I'd never anticipated.

On the way back, I didn't make any new friends, and I didn't have to sit on the floor. But I realised, first train in, that I was going to miss my next connection, and then I spent 40 minutes roaming around a train station in Germany, eating my favourite transit comfort food (lemon pound cake at Starbucks) until I could get another train. I took a tram, then another train, and then another, and by the time I got home, I felt like I had seen more countryside than I'd ever planned on seeing in one weekend. I also think a missed train is nice in films and everything but it is also very nice -- if not comfortable -- with people bound to see FRAN LEBOWITZ. So there's a train story. I did no writing. There is no Jane Eyre-style-narrative that is worth writing down every time I get on board. It’s just a train.

*WOLLEN in Berlin is the yarn store of my dreams. Amazing. Just amazing.