7 hours in a take-away Pt. 1

It is Sunday night and I've just flown into Newcastle from Paris. I realise to my dismay that the next train leaving from the airport will not make it in time for the last connecting trip of the night back to Middlesbrough, where I stay. I have two choices: Take the train anyway, and pray it will miraculously arrive early so I can make the last trip home; or stay in the airport, where it's warm, cozy, and there is a Starbucks open through the night. In a sleepy haze I hope against all the odds and common sense, and choose the former.

I do not make the connecting train.

The main rail station, which, on every other occasion I had passed through had been crowded and bustling, is empty and dead, even though it is not even 10PM. But this is a Sunday night, this is England, and winter has barely come to end. Nobody in their right minds would want to be stuck on public transport any later than this. Except I am not in my right mind.

I am stuck alone in a deserted and chillingly cold station, and the next train is 9 hours from now.

I want my warm bed. I enquire at the only taxi booth operating at this time of the night. 50 pounds for a ride back to Middlesbrough. 50 pounds! I had just lost 100 euros and my Identity Card to pickpockets in what would have otherwise been a perfect holiday to Paris. An extra 50 pounds just to get home seems robbery of another sort.

I realise my bed can wait a couple hours. But, more urgently, I need warmth, before I lose all sensation in my limbs. So I walk ten minutes down the road to a row of greasy take-aways with bright neon lights contrasting starkly against the otherwise pitch dark landscape.

I have three choices of where I will spend the night. I am a tiny girl, and a foreigner, no less, in an unfamiliar city. My guard is up. So, without any logical basis, I pick the take-away with people behind the counter that have the lightest skin colour, just because it seems "safer".

I order a burger and fries, because I think it would be rude for me to order a drink and sit there for the rest of the night without buying anything else. I have never eaten such a greasy burger in my life, and I probably never will again. But when you are cold and tired and worn-out from travel mishaps like getting pickpocketed and forgetting to check that your flight lands in time to catch the last train, a greasy burger can taste surprisingly good.

I sit and eat my burger and cautiously observe my surroundings. Based on their accents, I realise that the people working here are Eastern Europeans. I had ignorantly assumed they would be British, although why I had previously thought that would feel less threatening compared to say, sitting in a take-away run by Indians or Pakistanis, is suddenly beyond me, as the staff peer curiously at me from behind the counter while I nibble at my burger.

I am clearly out of place here, a little Asian girl dressed up for Paris with a scarf much too attention-grabbing for a grubby parmo place like this. But I have little choice; even in here, it's chilly, and I pull my scarf tighter around my shoulders and hope I do not attract too much unwanted attention.