My train in Spain broke down. Then a bottle came out

We’re deep in the bowels of a Barcelona metro tunnel when the train lights flicker. Nobody seems bothered; only a low murmur flutters around the carriage. We all boarded at the airport, and everyone is on the excited, nervous high of being in another country.

There’s more to think about than flickering lights. My fellow passengers check Google Maps and chitter about their plans. Three women opposite me laugh loudly– about what I don’t know. I can’t place what language they’re speaking.

Then the lights flicker again, plunging us into long seconds of utter darkness. The train slows. Murmurs turn into muttering. The train grinds to a halt. Minutes pass. Nobody is too bothered yet.

The communication system crackles. A voice says something in indistinct Spanish and then Catalan. Fortunately, one person in the carriage isn’t a tourist. The train isn’t delayed, she tells us. It has broken down.

I’m glad I’m heading away from the airport and not towards it. And I’ve been to Barcelona many times, so I’m in no particular hurry. This could, after all, be another sort of cultural experience.

I’m soon swapping eye rolls and what-can-you-do noises with two backpacking Germans, a Frenchman with a wardrobe-sized suitcase and the three women, whose cackles are undiminished by their predicament.

After a while, like a magician with a top hat, one of them pulls a bottle and several metal shot glasses from her shoulder bag. It’s 10 in the morning.

I know that bottle. It’s palinka, a fruit brandy consumed by Hungarians before meals, after meals, at family gatherings, on special occasions, just about any time. It isn’t for the fainthearted. The first time I had palinka, I downed it in one go and thought I was going to have a seizure.

I’ve no idea why these Hungarians are toting palinka. They don’t speak English, though I discover they’re from Budapest. And while I have a smattering of European languages, Hungarian is notoriously incomprehensible.

I imagine they’re in Barcelona for some middle-aged version of a hen party. Could it be a divorce party? No matter. One of them hands me a glass and I take a sip, and we smile at one another like old friends.

We spend an hour stuck in the tunnel. Eventually, staff appear. We have to evacuate. We haul suitcases down improvised ramps, along the tunnel, up service stairs and into a metro station. For some reason, we all giggle uncontrollably.

We’re in Parc Logistic, part of Barcelona’s sprawling harbour industrial zone, seemingly devoid of Ubers and buses. Its warehouses and export businesses won’t win any of the architectural accolades for which Barcelona is famous. Tourist cities aren’t all sweetness and light.

I’m not sure what happened to the three Hungarians. We were separated while suitcase hauling among hundreds of other passengers. But they’ve entered the pantheon of random, eccentric, friendly people I’ve met while travelling that I’ll always remember. You can’t beat human connection.

You can’t beat things-gone-wrong travel stories either. Whenever anyone asks me about Barcelona, from now on I’ll say nothing about its Sagrada Familia cathedral or Picasso paintings or tapas bars of the Gothic District.

I’ll talk about what a good time I had on the T1 Line, stuck underground near the airport, going nowhere. And how three Hungarians taught me that, instead of getting annoyed at travel’s mishaps, you should surrender to the moment, and make the most of it.