7:55 AM - After the rest of our voyage through Croatia, we crossed the border into Slovenia and the snoring man gathered his things and began to exit. He left the room with one word - "Bye" - and waited in the hallway for his stop. As Alli came out of the bathroom, he was standing there with a CD in his hand. He gave it to her to "bring back to America."

Apparently, Joze Lesnicar is a singer and has his own CD with tracks that have since been translated into the following: "Highway", "Captain Snake", "Meeting", "Nostradamus", "I Sing the Blues", and "Highway Reprise" to name a few . Attached is our favorite...

8: 03 AM - When Elena and Ilin-Dime found out he had given us a CD, they couldn't believe it. None of us could wait to hear what it sounded like. We decided to all go for a cup of coffee together once we reached Ljubljana.

8:15 AM - Our Serbian roommate thoughtfully bought us coffees that the conductor brewed in his cabin. Apparently, the conductors of The Balkan Express run a Black Market on rails selling coffee, beer, drinks, and god knows what else to supplement their meager salaries. It was Turkish coffee, which we found out is the same thing as Greek coffee. The Greeks just stole the naming rights, it seems. And like in Greece, it was sludgy and not very pleasant to drink making us wonder why the Greeks would ever want to claim it as their own, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

We passed the remainder of the time talking with our Serbian friend via gesture, iconography, broken English/Italian, and through Chad's drawings . It turns out that he has family in Chicago, and Chad gave him a complete geography lesson on the major cities of the United States. It was truly amazing how much we could communicate with each other without speaking each other's language. It was even more amazing to really discover that no matter where we live, who we worship, or what language we speak, we are all human and can converse with one another using the most basic of rituals - the morning cup of coffee.

Outside the window, the views of the Slovenian countryside were as good as the company inside, and the train followed the Sava river through the mountains until we reached Ljubljana at...

9:10 AM - After 26 hours (27 counting the time change), our journey through five different countries and four world capitals was finally complete. Neither one of us will ever forget our time aboard The Balkan Express.