Train play by play: 25 hours from Berlin to Kiev

15:00 (hour 1) Please see previous blog post for overall hilarity of where I will spend the next 24 hours.

16:00 (hour 2) We’re finally done the milk run of every station outside of Berlin and I think we’ve picked up enough people who don’t speak English. I did have the room to myself, but I’m now joined by a very nice Ukrainian family. I think they like me, although we don’t understand each other. Maybe all their gestures are out of hatred and they are actually cursing me...

17:00 (hour 3) It’s cool, we left the sun behind us and now we’re in the middle of a huge thunder and lightning storm.

19:00 (hour 4) Kiev is an hour ahead of Western Europe, so to get on track with their time, and try to make myself feel better about how much time was left on the train, I set my watch ahead an hour.

20:00 (hour 5) I think I was offered tea of coffee, but I’m not sure. The conductor talks to me in German, I think because he thinks that’s closer to English than Ukrainian or Russian, I don’t understand him either way. I say yes to tea.

21:00 (hour 6) I’m getting sleepy but I was staying up waiting for him to bring my tea. Other people have tea. I don’t know where to go get my tea. I thought he’d bring it here, oh well.

22:00 (hour 7) I read my Ukraine Lonely Planet book for a bit, I think the family noticed and they don’t think I’m as ignorant as before. It’s getting darker though, so I’ll get ready for bed. I also may be delirious from all this heat.

23:00 (hour 8) to 5:00 (hour 14) I slept for a solid 6 hours, until I was woken up by being shaken by an armed guard in my room yelling at me in Ukrainian. Where’s the family? They’re all in the hall. The security guy and the family all keep saying this one word to me, I heard them, but I don’t know what it means, so repeating it isn’t helping. The train is stopped. Maybe they’re telling me to get out? Are we leaving the train? I jump out of bed and put on my shoes. In the hall, I notice everyone is getting their passport checked. Ahhh, the word was passport. I show the security guy my passport and he stamps it, all is good. Back to bed.

6:00 (hour 15) I get shaken awake again. Whoa. This time, it’s 4 security people, and they are taking everyone’s passport and giving them a customs form (thank God with English instructions). But, they don’t wait around for us to fill it out and they just leave with our passports. Uh oh. Is this normal?

6:30 I just stayed awake this time. I think my heart would stop if someone else shook me awake in an armed uniform. Three women, in different uniforms, are going through asking everyone 100 questions. Customs is apparently very thorough if you arrive by train. I don`t understand anything they ask me, so once they figure out I only speak English, the only thing they say to me is ``narcotics?”. So I say no, and I think the family answered the rest of my questions for me.

7:00 (hour 16) They are back with our passports, and I’m less worried now that I can prove I’m Canadian again. We trade them for our customs forms and they take off again.

8:00 (hour 17) to 11:00 (hour 20) After I calm back down from all that I sleep for 3 more hours.

12:00 (hour 21) Awake and hungry. I’m also very grungy, but freshening up in the bathroom would only make it worse. You’d know what I mean if you saw the bathroom. I need to start rationing crackers and Fanta Orange from now on. Only 4 more hours to go.

13:00 (hour 22) The Ukraine is a huge country. I think we’ve been across about only a quarter of it by now, but I can’t figure out where we are because I can’t read their alphabet to know what stops we are making. There are huge fields of soy and barley and really Eastern European looking houses and farms. The forests are also really dense and dark.


14:00 (hour 23) People are starting to pack up their things. Ok, I can do that too. We fold up our sheets and the bed and I pretend to be like a local and stand in the corridor staring out the window for the rest of the trip.

15:00 (hour 24) I get changed and get my stuff together. I’m not sure how many AIESECers will be meeting me at the train station, but if it’s more than 1, I don’t want to look like this.

16:00 (hour 25) More staring out the window. These people really are into that. But it’s cool to see the country. We are starting to pass through some bigger towns now. Hopefully I get off at the right stop. And, the train got in almost exactly on time, after 25 hours, only 5 minutes late.