JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

We want to be a writer-in-residence on a train line, writing stories on the railway. We could live on Snowpiercer. The way climate change is proceeding, we probably will live on Snowpiercer.

The train to Vienna was an hour late; a long delay at one station added 1 hour of tedium (fidgeting, looking at watch) to our pleasant 6-hour trip (reading, writing, taking naps). We emerged into a cold, deserted station and followed the signs to the taxi rank. Someone was yelling “Hey! Hey!” on the street. Ordinarily, hearing shouting at 1230am in a strange city would be scary, but we’d just endured an hour of boredom and could not be messed with. Then a gray animal the size of a terrier ran down the stairs into the station. Something out of the Brothers Grimm—a hedgehog? A dog fleeing its costume-obsessed humans?

There were no taxis on the empty street and we were about to call a taxi company (Globe, for Chrissakes stop sending us daily data roaming offers, we’re not interested! We told you specifically: Text roaming only, no data roaming. You had better not be billing us for data roaming or there will be tears and blood–yours) when a taxi appeared. Inside the radio was playing “Weather With You” by Crowded House, which told us we’d be fine, not that it ever occurred to us that we would not be fine. The driver took a wrong turn to the hotel and had to go round the block so he stopped the meter. Nice.