Moscow - Irkutsk

After 4 days in the train I arrived in Irkutsk, at 5 am local time, 12 pm Moscow time and 10 pm Amsterdam time. My system has been seriously mixed up. At the second day in the train I was already thinking that I would arrive the day after. What about a bad surprise.. Who would have thought that you could get a jet lag by travelling by train.

Even though the ride has been great fun, just meeting a lot of people from across the globe. At the moment I am hanging out with 2 Scottish. During the ride, I played a lot of card games, I like to find out about new games and tried a lot of snacks and stuff. This caused me an arguing stomach, but that should be alright at the end of the day. Luckily there was medication available (Coca-Cola). I remember that being suggested by a colleague someday, she has been proven right up to now (Thanks for that).

The ride itself has been very interesting. The first day was most difficult when realising that you're stuck in the train for a few days and that you can only get out for a few minutes at the occasional stops. As well, the landscape remained more or less the same. When hopping on the train 10 minutes before departure (I was stuck in Moscow for a second), I had a good laugh about 2 Scottish guys being asked for their tickets by some drunk Russian woman. It was like a jammed tape: Tickets please, tickets. Tickets please, tickets. Nobody knew who she was, including the Russians. So the poor lady was being sort of ignored.
The next morning when I opened the door to leave my 'room' for a moment I had to go through the same procedure. Then I/we found out it was the steward (provodnik). She still sounded like a bad DJ: Tickets please, tickets. Tickets please, tickets. When trying to explain to her that I already handed my ticket to the other provodnik, she just increased her volume mixing it with some Russian lines. After about thirty minutes of this 'conversation' I understood that my ticket was wrong. Apparently I did not have a ticket for a foreigner (I was lucky enough that a friend in Russia was willing to buy my ticket in Moscow). It was weird because my name and passport number was noted on the reservation. So the woman demanded my booklet with tickets (including the one to Ulaan-Bator) and walked of, leaving me confused. She told me I would get everything back in Irkutsk. So I decided to cross my fingers and find out..

The next day my interview started by my Russian roommates, trying to find out about me in Russian-English. Signs and gestures worked well during the ride. I had brought a small pocket dictionary and had picked up on some basic words to maintain a sort of courtesy. After a few swops of roommates, people getting on and of, I was accompanied by a Russian-Ukraine-France-Mongolian girl and a Russian guy. The girl was able to speak some English and the guy knew as much English as I knew Russian.. So the girl was doing a lot of translating, a few beers and some shots of vodka helped to get the conversation flowing..

The night before getting of the train the provodnik came up to me and to my relief returned my tickets. Therewith one worry was over. The only worry I have left is my registration in Moscow. When staying in a Russian city for more than 3 days you need to register. I had asked at the hostel whether they where able to arrange this for me. Because if you don't you get harassed by the police and they might give you some difficulty at the boarder. After frequently asking about my confirmation of registration 2 hours before departure I found out it had not been picked up yet. So after trowing my stuff together I had to wait for the guy (Dan) to return, but he didn't.. So I asked the manager and he found out he was still busy arranging everything. We agreed to meet at the train station with 40 minutes left, while I only knew the name of the metro station and just learned how to use the metros. I also had to find out which of the 2 stations I had to get in order to get to my train and meet Dan before the train. Because, I was down to 40 minutes I could not make any mistakes and luckily I didn't, however Dan did not turn up..