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All settled and waiting for my first train of my #AzadiRail trip. The first section will be my habitual 
Régiolis transfrontalier to #Strasbourg 
.
Am I going to get a sleeper carriage with a shower 
on my #KalmanImre 
Stuttgart - 
Salzburg - 
Budapest ?
First night train reached. #AzadiRail day & night 1 comfortable an relaxed so far.
I share a wagon-lits compartment in the 
#KalmanImre with a young Hungarian woman traveling by night train for the first time as well as a Romanian woman experienced in night train travels, homeward bound together with her boyfriend.
We sadly got a modern 
WLABmz 123.1 carriage, so sadly no shower tomorrow morning.
My trip today was : 
Lauterbourg - Strasbourg - Stuttgart - Salzburg - Wien - Budapest. Btw. an excellently scheduled #CrossBorderRail junction.
After brief breakfast in the #KalmanImre , I still had a long conversation with my compartment mate about travels and the world. Arriving in Budapest, I quickly confirmed : the international counter in Budapest Keleti cannot sell me my ticket to Halkali either.
So far, everything settled for #AzadiRail day 2 : a walk in the city park and relaxing in #Budapest thermal baths 
.
Spotted the 
#УЗ #UZ ! Sadly #AzadiRail won't get me to Ukraine (yet) ... After a relaxing day in Széchenyi thermal bath, it's time to travel southbound. The 
#Muntenia will bring me to 
Craiova, close to the border of Bulgaria.
I caught a comfortable 
1st class couchette. The conductor told me, there are three more passengers supposed to travel from Budapest up to Arad with me but so far they haven't shown up. In any case, I'll have the night alone in the compartment.
I'll take some rest soon since the night will be short and after a relaxed and comfortable day & night 2, tomorrow will be the most exhausting part of my journey.
Good morning Fedi 
!
Let's check what to do for 1.5 h in #Craiova at 5 a.m. 
...
Despite a public holiday and 5.30 a.m. in the morning, #Craiova is really vivid. Many people waiting at the station, a couple of people out on the streets.
I spent an excellent night in the comfortable first class couchettes, but since it's a public holiday in Romania, sadly I didn't find any food so far.
Amongst amazing class 41 locomotives, the station surprised me with a vending machine for books. An amazing idea for travelers.
Since everything around the station in Craiova is still closed, I took a seat in the waiting hall, waiting for my advertised #CrossBorderRail train to 
#Vidin .
I'm taking bets for #AzadiRail day & night 3 : Am I going to catch a wagon-lits reservation for the 
Sofia-Istanbul-Express ?
But first of all : 3 hours of Vmax 30 and Vmax 40 
. #AzadiRail
The conductor was absolutely not amused to see an InterRail ticket . #AzadiRail
The conductor came back with another scanning device, once again tried to scan my ticket, afterwards tried to enter my ticket number somewhere, tried to enter my passport number somewhere but in the end gave up - there were no letters on their keyboard.
They smiled at me, pointed to their scanning device and complained something in Romanian containing the words "okay" and "international billet" and disappeared. Apparently their scanners were not InterRail benchmarked ...
Still 40 km Vmax 30 . #AzadiRail feels like #Bienwaldbahn here.
Wow, a Desiro :
- clean
- only one window broken
- all dors open and close
- friendly conductor
- clean toilet
- towel and toilet paper
- tap water and soap
- comfortable occupancy
This is a dream, is it ?
- solidarity with 
@lewd@zug.network#CrossBorderRail almost 10/10, @jon ! (Okay, offer is poor, one train pair per day, but at least they tried to make that one train as good as they can.)