A testament to how tired the past week of traveling had made me, I had woken only 3 times in the previous night. I still felt tired, but I couldn’t simply roll over and drift off again. I had a train to catch. Or so I thought.

My schedule was wrong, its time tables saying the train would depart at 11. Instead, my train to Krakow wouldn’t even arrive at the station until 2.  With the extra hours to kill, I decided to spend it walking through the city more, coming across remnants of holiday festivities and outdoor markets. All were closed, either being dismantled or simply unloaded of their wares.

With my train running late, I started looking for a place to have lunch and ran into my two roommates. We waved hello at each other and, later as I made my way back to the station, I wondered what the odds were in randomly meeting some of the only people I knew in the city.

I napped during most of the 7-hr train ride to Krakow, though in those moments when I was awake, I reflected on the first half of my trip, coming to two conclusions:

1. Vienna was more impressive than Salzburg or Prague and, if I were to do it over again, I’d have sacrificed days in either city for more time in Austria’s capital.
   

2. The guy from North Carolina had pretty much gotten it right. Everyone is really the same. Whatever the country, we all go about our lives, running small errands, talking about random miscellaneous things, and caring for our loved ones. The only real difference between anyone is in language.