The Hotel That Crosses Borders While You Sleep

There exists a hotel in which you fall asleep in one country and surface in another. It goes by the name of the night train, and Europe still runs plenty of them. You board at dusk in some grand city station, find your cabin, no larger than a wardrobe, with its fold down bed and its small ladder, and around midnight the platform slips away behind you.

Postoji hotel u kojem zaspiš u jednoj državi, a probudiš se u drugoj. Zove se noćni vlak, a Europa ih još uvijek vozi u velikom broju. Ukrcaš se u sumrak na nekom veličanstvenom gradskom kolodvoru, pronađeš svoju kabinu, ne veću od ormara, s krevetom na sklapanje i malim ljestvama, i oko ponoći peron ti nestaje iza leđa.

Picture it properly. Your shoes wait beneath the bed, your ticket sits tucked into the pocket by the pillow, and the whole compartment sways gently, as a boat might. Through the gap in the curtain, fragments of the night appear: a lit farmhouse, a station name flashing past too quickly to read, the black shoulders of distant mountains. At some point a border slides beneath you unnoticed, and you sleep through the crossing.

Zamisli to kako treba. Tvoje cipele čekaju ispod kreveta, tvoja karta stoji utaknuta u džep kraj jastuka, a cijeli kupe blago se ljulja, poput broda. Kroz pukotinu u zavjesi pojavljuju se ulomci noći: osvijetljena seoska kuća, naziv kolodvora koji prebrzo prolazi da bi se pročitao, crna ramena udaljenih planina. U nekom trenutku granica ti neopaženo klizi ispod tijela, a ti prespavaš cijeli prelazak.

Come morning, an attendant knocks with coffee and warm rolls, and you raise the blind on a different world. Snow crowns the peaks, mist pools in the valleys, and cattle graze with the unhurried air of creatures that have never been rushed. You went to bed in a capital city and woke inside a postcard of the Alps. No airport, no queue, no misplaced luggage. Just a bed fitted with a very capable engine.

Kada dođe jutro, pratitelj pokuca s kavom i toplim pecivima, a ti podigneš roletu na sasvim drugačiji svijet. Snijeg kruni vrhove, magla se skuplja u dolinama, a stoka pase s nežurnim mirom stvorenja koja nikada nisu žurila. Legao si u glavnom gradu, a probudio se unutar razglednice Alpa. Nema zračne luke, nema reda čekanja, nema izgubljene prtljage. Samo krevet opremljen vrlo sposobnim motorom.