It’s one of those days when a song gets stuck in my head.
I mean really stuck in my head – all day.
There’s music playing in the breakfast area of the Innsbruck hotel – the sort of inoffensive pop music tunes which provide a background to the Bircher muesli, soundtrack to the scrambled eggs and playlist for the pastries.
Today is the longest journey of my trip: nearly five hours on the slow and winding route from Innsbruck to Vienna via Salzburg.
At Innsbruck station there are lots of people with cases and bags waiting to board the train. The platform signs helpfully indicate the formation of the carriages so I find the correct spot in line with my carriage.
Except the carriage has two sets of doors and after boarding and checking the seat numbers of the first few seats, I realise my seat is at the other end of the carriage.
Lots of other people are getting on behind me so there’s no possibility of me getting off and boarding at the other end. Instead, I wheel my case to the centre of the carriage where there is a large area for luggage hoping to deposit my bags then flop into my seat … only to be met by a group of people coming the other way wheeling their luggage having suffered the same fate in reverse.
It’s Luggage Logjam – more exciting than “It’s a Knockout” or ”Jeux Sans Frontieres” and lasting about as long as a modern Eurovision Song Contest.
I can’t move forward and I can’t move backward. I can’t move sideways. I can’t move.
No-one’s going anywhere. Everyone’s standing their ground. It’s worse than the worst sort of EU summit.
Eventually I take matters into my own hands. Muttering multilingual apologies, I ease past the people facing me, dump my case in the luggage area and body swerve my way to my seat. It has the effect of breaking the logjam and creating the space for everyone else to follow suit in turn.
I don’t expect any thanks – and I don’t get any. All part of the service.
The scenery is not as nice as yesterday although more varied with some industrial areas as well as mountains and rivers. Low cloud and some rain don’t dampen my spirit as the train goes into Germany briefly (or so my mobile provider told me) then back into Austria.
The place names on or near the route remind me of distant days as a child watching Ski Sunday with David Vine or the Winter Olympics – places like Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Kitzbuhel.
Oh that reminds me. The song from breakfast which has been in my head all day. It sums up how I feel right now.
Half The World Away.