A Night in Delémont

It was a cold, snowy Thursday when we left from the Zwolle train station. As usual, we had our overly full bags, some travel food, a little bit of excitement, and our travel itinerary. But this travel itinerary was a little bit different from the rest: because Pug and I didn't plan far enough ahead, we could not reserve a spot on a "sleeper train," so our hand-written itinerary contained a layover from 1am to 5am in Delémont, Switzerland. Well, to be honest, I was pretty worried about the whole situation, but we decided before we left that we were just going to be brave and try to sleep in the train station.

We arrived in a nearly forsaken Delémont train station at the expected time, an hour after midnight. Our first mission was to stake out the place, so we walked around scouting the best places to sleep. We finally came upon a nice, glass box on one of the platforms that served as a waiting area during the day. The glass box had one long, black bench which was easily long enough for two people to sleep on, and under the bench was an old heater that was dutifully pumping out warm air. This was the ideal place. However, we noticed a worker lethargically walking around cleaning the trains and emptying trash, so we figured that maybe we should leave for a while and come back when the eyes that could get us in trouble had moved on from our quaint glass haven.

One half of an hour later, after scoping the city to be sure that are conjured excuse about no open hostels was true, we returned to our chosen beds. I was still a bit scared that my wonderful snowboarding trip might quickly turn into a nice stay in a Swiss prison. With thoughts of calling the United States Embassy with my only phone call, I drifted to sleep. Less than an hour later, I heard a loud, repetitive thud against the glass which I later realized was caused by the butt of a wooden broom. I was awake, but I didn't dare to open my eyes yet, afraid that all of the thoughts that were running through my head would turn out to be true when I let the light of the world flood into my eyes. But the noise needed acknowledgment and I was now somehow aware that there was a person near, so I sat up and looked around.

There were two people standing near: one was a dirty looking worker who was still standing outside of the glass waiting area with broom in hand. The other had already entered our makeshift home and was looking at me; he was better dressed and clean shaven, and although I was terrified, he didn't look very scary. This man said something in a French, so we went through the now common process of finding a mutual language to speak in (which of course was English).

"You can't sleep here." He was kind, but stern, and there was obviously no way to argue with him. "Do you have somewhere to go?" Semi-conciously I gave him my helpless puppy dog with no place to go response. "Well, hmm... where are you going? To Biel? That train leaves at five... from platform one... okay... well I guess you could sleep in the train."

I was startled. He is going to let us sleep in the train?! He's kicking us off of our chill, uncomfortable benches only to relocate us in a train? "A train? That train?" I stuttered as I pointed in no particular direction, still quite shocked.

"No," was his stern response. I did hear wrong. He wasn't going to let us sleep on the train. "No, the train over there, the one you will need to be on in the morning." He smiled. I'm not sure whether my shocked, scared face changed, but I was certainly smiling inside. He led us to the train, unlocked the door, and held out his hand in polite courtesy. After many long and heartfelt thanks, we drifted to sleep on the floor of our train. As the darkness of rest came over me, only one peaceful thought manifested itself in my head: this is much better than a Swiss prison.