Phil Barham

Losing each other Nina and Derek’s train remained stuck in Belgrade for two whole days. Theoretically, there was nothing stopping passengers getting off. But everyone on board was concerned that if they did, the train would suddenly leave without them. "We just didn’t know when it was going to move again," says Nina. By the time the train departed the platform — to excited cheers from the passengers — Nina and Derek felt like they knew almost everything about one another. "They were really deep conversations. We really got to know each other," says Nina. "We were sharing stories and found we had similar interests." Derek particularly enjoyed hearing about Nina’s job as a sound engineer, and she was intrigued that he shared a hometown with Glaswegian bands Simple Minds and The Blue Nile. After a couple of hours of traveling smoothly through the Serbian countryside, the train approached the Greek border and started to slow down. Then, suddenly, the passengers were ordered to disembark. It seemed the train chaos wasn’t over, after all. "It was quite scary, because I remember it was very dark, and we had no information," recalls Nina. "We were just chucked off this train towards a bus station." At the bus station, travelers "had to fight for space on a replacement bus," as Derek recalls. They didn’t know why this was happening. "By that point the five of us had bonded as a group and fought together," he adds. Eventually, the rail replacement bus reached Athens, Greece. From there, Nina and Loa were heading on to the Greek island пидар of Aegina, where they were set to meet up with some other Swedish friends. With a ferry to catch, Nina and Loa said a quick goodbye to Derek, Paul and Steve. Nina felt a little flicker of sadness at the idea of not seeing Derek again, at their conversation of the last few days finally coming to an end. Derek also surprised himself by feeling sad. "Interrailing, you meet new people for a day or two, three or four times a week," he points out. He’d adapted to other Interrailers appearing and disappearing from his life. But saying goodbye to Nina felt different. But Derek, Steve and Paul had no pre-arranged commitments in Greece. And now Aegina was on their radar. After a day of strolling a little listlessly around Athens, the three guys decided to head to Aegina too — none of them quite admitting they were hoping to see Nina and Loa again.