Switzerland, 6th December, 2012. The sleeper train switches across the endless overlaid tracks outside Zurich Hauptbahnhoff with clicks and squeaks, then slides into one of the many platforms, on time at precisely 7:26 in the morning. I hope I don’t look as tired and ruffled as the others in my compartment extracting themselves from their bunks, but I’m not optimistic. After some on-bunk contortions to get my jumper on that would make a yoga master proud I clamber off my bunk and get off the train.

Vienna, 5th December 2012. I eat breakfast in the hostel canteen, which is as cold, clean and institutional as the rest of the building. The giggling, laughing and squealing of a school group behind me mixed with the somber looks of the canteen staff, dressed all in white, makes the transformation to a cuckoo’s nest like sanitarium almost complete. Previous hostels have all been little operations but this one though is a big institutional effort.

Budapest, 4th December 2012. “Step back please.” The crowd shuffles back and one of the two soldiers barks an order; they swing their swords up in unison, pause, and swing them down again into a new position. Then the soldiers are silent and still once more. “The guards move their sword arm every fifteen minutes so they don’t fall asleep.” explains the guide in a slightly bored voice. More cautiously than when we first arrived, our tour group shuffles back towards the thick glass case between the soldiers that holds the Holy Crown of Hungary. The golden crown is ringed with a series of enamel pictures and topped with its famous slightly wonky cross; the result of the crown being hastily hidden in a chest that was too small for it.

Budapest, 3rd December 2012. A dog’s bark echos around the quiet dark courtyard as I sit in the kitchen drinking some water. The building the hostel occupies part of is a slightly disheveled grand old Hungarian apartment building, located a couple of blocks from the parliament. The stairs have loops for carpet rods, and Alex, the congenial host of the Centrum hostel , apologetically joked that he hadn’t had time to put the red carpet back in for our arrival. As Ste and I are the only guests at this quiet time of year we’ve been given the small apartment that adjoins the hostel.

Belgrade, December 2nd 2012. Our train pulls into Novi Sad station just over an hour after leaving Belgrade. We have been travelling across the vast wide open Pannonian Plan which makes up most of Serbia north of the capital. This enormous flat region is the meeting point of Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, a fertile growing region for millennia, its fields are split between many countries. Our journey to Budapest will cover around 250km, all of them across this calm earthen sea.

Belgrade, December 1st 2012. A half-metre long purple spark leaps to the grounding plate with a loud bang. In my hands a fluorescent tube flickers and begins to glow unevenly, bright and dark patches of light pulsate inside. The tube isn’t connected to anything. I’m holding it gingerly in my hands and around me others are doing the same with more tubes. We form a semi-circle around a humming three metre high Tesla coil, all looking at the sparking polished dome, tentativly holding our glowing tubes like some strange electrical religious rite, nervous that an angry god is going to lash out and shock us if we hold the tube incorrectly. I look over to Ste who grins nervously back, copying what I imagine my face is doing. We know it’s safe, but the irregular bang of the giant spark doesn’t let us believe that.

Belgrade, 30th November 2012. Riot police flow between the Old Palace and the Serbian Presidential building, heading in the same direction I am. Yesterday was the date of the national day of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and I’d been warned at the hostel that there may be some people out marching “because of nostalgia”. What kind of nostalgia requires riot police? I continue down the busy main road of Kralja Milana, trying not to let the increasing numbers of riot police worry me; no one else seems to be paying them any attention. Ahead the police have closed off the road and a procession is marching towards the town centre and the bored looking, shield carrying officers. It’s a only a small march, perhaps two hundred people waving the plain blue, white and red striped flag of the FRY. In the middle of the column is a flat-bed lorry with a sound system playing a slow heavy marching song, the brass instruments sound harsh through speakers designed for bass heavy beats. With the march in the road, flanked by police, the pavement becomes very crowded, but shoppers carrying on as usual, pushing past each other with bags of food and new clothes. Few seem to be paying attention, only one or two stop and watch the march.

Belgrade, 29th November 2012 “Budapest? Quick I’ll take you to the other station, otherwise you’ll miss the train!” Herman hoists his big rucksack on his thin frame, wobbles for second, steadies, then follows the taxi driver at a jog and vanishes past the end of the train. “Good luck” I call after him. Wait, there isn’t another long distance railway station in Belgrade…is there? My mind is only half awake as I’m tired from a poor night’s sleep in a hot and dry sleeper compartment and I struggle to remember anything about Serbian trains. I look at the quiet of Belgrade station’s eight tracks at six thirty in the morning. Perhaps the taxi driver is right, but I don’t remember any mention of another station. All other international trains depart from this station, why wouldn’t the Budapest trains?

Sofia, 28th November 2012. After a long sleep I head out and start exploring Sofia. I don’t have very long in Sofia as tonight I’m taking the night train on to Belgrade. I start the day by wandering south to the National Palace of Culture and then head north and east to the park surrounding the Monument to the Soviet Army, one of a number of monuments built under soviet rule to express Bulgaria’s gratitude for their liberation. The park is filled with many little childish statues which have been sprayed in bright and slightly creepy colours. The monument itself is a large column on a raised square, atop stands a copper Russian soldier, flanked by a Bulgarian family, proudly waving his gun in the air and staring to the North.

Bulgaria, 27th November 2012. “Passport!” I’m woken with a start by the shout and the knocking on my compartment door. In the dark I fumble for the light switch, my glasses and then my passport. I slide open the door to see a heavy set border guard wearing a green bomber jacket and holding a stamp. He looks briefly at the passport, stamps it, passes it back and moves on. I check the time, four o’clock in the morning, then turn off the light and fall into a half sleep.