Knowing when to disembark from a bus or train in a strange city is always tricky.
If you leave it too late, as my friend did on the DART many years ago, you could find yourself stuck in a train wash. She was on her way to an interview for a teaching post when she lingered too long in the carriage and found herself hurtling into the train wash.
The railway workers got great amusement from her predicament but unfortunately it didn’t do her any favours and she didn’t get the job.
On the other hand, if you have a tendency to panic and shoot off the train too soon, you could have something in common with James Joyce. The writer also had a teaching job on his mind when the confusion arose.
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Joyce had received an offer of an English language teaching job in Trieste so he and Nora Barnacle left Zurich for the Italian city on a lovely autumnal evening in 1904.
Perhaps their conversation was so scintillating that they lost track of time, or maybe Joyce’s poor eyesight was to blame, but when the train pulled into a significant city, they thought they had reached their destination and hurriedly disembarked.
In fact, they had arrived in Ljubljana in Slovenia, then known as Laibach. Students of geography will know that they still had almost 100 km to travel before they got to the Adriatic port city of Trieste.
Herbert Gorman’s biography of the writer recounts how the train they had deserted was already hooting its way through the darkness when they realised their error.
There were no more trains until dawn, and they had no money for lodgings so they crept into the park across from the train station and remained there until the morning. He writes that they watched and counted the stars “and agreed that they were bright and glorious. The rich odour of autumnal earth suspired about them and they were not unhappy at all”.
A German brewery worker made a similar mistake in 1977 and, like Joyce, it all worked out very well for him too.
Erwin Kreuz had only been abroad once when he decided to take the trip of a lifetime to San Francisco, having seen it on television. He had a poor command of the English language and was groggy when the airplane stopped to refuel in Bangor, Maine.
A flight attendant was finishing her shift, and before she left the plane she told him to enjoy his time in San Francisco. He thought he had reached his destination so he grabbed his suitcase and sprung from the aircraft.
He got a taxi into the city and booked into a local hotel. The brave Erwin still thought he was in San Francisco and he spent several days wandering around in confusion, hoping to catch a sight of the Golden Gate bridge or Chinatown.
He did find two Chinese restaurants which mollified him slightly, but eventually he came to the conclusion that he was in the suburbs. When he flagged down a taxi to take him to San Francisco, he learned that it was 6,000km away.
The brewery worker had been busy sampling rival beers in a local bar so he returned there to seek help. When word got out about the mix up, he became a major celebrity. He received the keys to the city, met the state Governor, flipped burgers at McDonalds and was feted at celebrations to mark his 50th birthday.
San Francisco got in on the act then, flying him to the city and wining and dining him for several more days. By the time he left the US, the bachelor had reportedly received three marriage proposals. Despite the hospitality shown by the San Francisco dignitaries, he concluded that he preferred Bangor and he returned on two more occasions.
While his story is still regularly referenced by the Bangor Daily News, there is no plaque or memorial to commemorate the famous lost tourist. James Joyce fared much better after his unscheduled stopover in Ljubljana train station.
In 1994, a group of Slovenian writers brought out a book of short stories inspired by his brief stay. And then, in 2003, his fleeting visit was remembered at Ljubljana railway station by Slovenian sculptor Jakov Brdar with small plaque.
It features a portrait of the writer and notes: “On October 19, 1904, James Joyce spent the night in Ljubljana.” Alongside it is a bronze gutter grate with a sentence from Ulysses printed in Slovenian and English.
If you feel like viewing the little memorial, unfortunately there is no direct flight from Ireland to the Slovenian capital. You can, however, follow in Joyce’s footsteps and take the train from Zurich. Just make sure you alight at the correct station.
