The first-class seats on the Viennese train to Hungary were traded for first class seats on the Hungarian train back, which meant that we had one cabin left to choose from- and no light. We sat in the dining car, drinking green-bottled beer and green tea. When we crossed the border to Austria, another conductor came through and asked for us to reproduce our tickets. We repeatedly picked up the vase and plastic flower on our dining car table, but to our dismay the tickets had disappeared! The conductor was not amused. We frantically scrambled for a three-minute eternity and finally found the tickets shoved into a travel bag. Years later I was not so surprised when Hungarian trains were stopped at the Austrian border and Syrian refugees were turned away.