We spent a couple of days of aimless biking near the Ukrainian border. Nickipedia had planned, with his ten words of German and three words of Czech, an overnight train across Slovakia to Bratislava. We could then switch trains and head back to Vienna. Everything was timed perfectly: on our last day in Slovakia, we would cycle all day and arrive at the station in Čierna nad Tisou in time for a shower before boarding the train. Most large train stations in Czechoslovakia had public showers which could be used for a small fee. Nickipedia  knew scant Czech, but he could read train manual symbols in any language. Back in Prague he had memorized the list of stations with showers. Unlucky for us, our last day cycling it poured rain. We couldn’t sit in a café and wait for it to stop as we had to reach Čierna nad Tisou before our train left. We were a little tight for time, but rode our bikes right into the station, drenched, sweaty and splattered with mud head to toe, with a half hour to spare. It was then we learned the showers were out of order. Our train trip to Vienna was scheduled to take 13 hours.
Nickipedia and I stowed our bikes in the baggage car and dripped and squelched our way through the narrow corridors of the train to our sleeper compartment. We left streaks of mud along the interior walls of the train cars as we tried to avoid rubbing up against passengers walking the other direction, in corridors one-and-a-half persons wide.
We had sprung for the deluxe sleeping compartment, which consisted of narrow bunk beds facing a mirror and tiny sink. The space between the beds and the wall holding the sink was one foot wide. There was only a cold water tap, and the slow stream of water was the width of a drinking straw. I was so disgustingly sweaty and muddy this setup looked like a viable shower to me.
“Hey Nick, I know we’re in tight quarters here, but I don’t think we can last all night without cleaning up. This is our new shower.”
“Agreed,” said Nickipedia, agreeably. “You go first.”
“OK, but you had better take the top bunk because I don’t think I can use this sink without my bare butt hanging into the bottom bunk.”
“I get it,” replied Nickipedia. “There will probably be a lot of bending over and other stuff I don’t want to see.”
Nickipedia clamoured up top and I stripped off my soggy and bespattered clothes. I am not overly shy, and spent my teenage years showering with various sports teammates. But I had never been the sole showerer with an audience, especially one in such close proximity. I know Nickipedia had no interest in watching, and wasn’t watching, but I hardly knew the guy! Standing naked on one foot, with the other in the sink about four feet high, washing my mucky leg, was particularly awkward. After 30 minutes, the majority spent rinsing shampoo out of my hair with that pencil-thin trickle, I was remarkably clean. It was then I realized I had no towel.