After getting to bed at 8am following the shenanigans last night, I forced myself up out of bed at 10am because I had a lot to be getting on with. Started off with breakfast of a sandwich and a coffee in Starbucks (how very Russian!)
Then it was off to the supermarket to pick up some munchies to tide me over on the train. I already have cereal bars, cup-a-soups and pasta with me, and a local supermarket furnished me with some bread, cold meat, laughing cow cheese (what goes "moo ha ha ha ha"? Laughing cow cheese. Well I think its funny.), as well as some Pringles, a packet of salted nuts and eight Twixes. Sounds like a balanced diet to me.
Then with trepidation in my heart, I headed back to DME airport at about 1pm to see if my bag would arrive off the Heathrow flight which was due in at 1530. I was forcing myself to be hopeful, but secretly feared the worst. If it didn't turn up what was I going to do ? Doubtful I would have time to replace all my clothes, all my toiletries, all my books etc, so who knows what I would have done.
Got to DME, bullshitted my way past a customs officer to get into baggage reclaim the wrong way (always pick on the youngest, gawkiest looking one if you need to blag your way into anything), and waited ... and waited ... and waited.
And after an eternity of being on tenterhooks, the last bag off the plane was mine. I could have cried. In fact, I think I did a little bit. People were started to avoid me and move away from me a little more than usual, but I didn't care. I had all I needed, and I was going on the Trans-Siberian Express.
Got back to my hotel at about 7pm, leaving me with just enough time to grab a quick bit of food down the road. If you ever order a New York Burger from a Japanese restaurant, be prepared for it looking something like this, with the smallest portion of chips in the world and only a pair of chopsticks to eat it.
I must go to Japan one day, they seem to have a fine sense of humour.
Checked out of my hotel, jumped in a taxi, and I was at Yaroslavsky train station by 2030, an hour before departure. Like most Russian train stations, it was a bit of a zoo with people and bodies everywhere, and not really much in the way of signs to tell you where to go or what you should be doing. (Plenty of soldiers and metal detectors though, but I fancy that an overweight Scottish guy in a Scotland top isn't high on their list of people who are threats to Russian national security).
And then all of a sudden I was on the train. A private, two berth cabin all to myself for the next six nights.
I was shown to the cabin by my wee Chinese guard (gutted that I don't have a middle-aged overweight Russian mama provistnista, but this particular train is a Chinese one so all the staff look like 18-year old Chinese army conscripts. My guy was perfectly pleasant though, and he brought me a jug of coffee at about 10pm for my cabin. Didn't really have the heart to break it to him that I was Scottish and it wouldn't be coffee I would be drinking this particular evening.
So how did I feel about the whole day ? Started off on a downer until I got some sleep at the Sleepbox, the whole losing-bag thing really got to me and put me in a bad place. Had some sleep and perked up a bit, then got all nervous and stressed as I wondered and waited if my bag was going to come. It did, I relaxed a bit, only then started to enjoy myself, and then finally got on the train.
Was wonderful to do some Facetime with the kids, but it was an awful moment when we hung up on each other and their faces and their voices were gone from the cabin. I've noticed plenty of times when I've been away with work that the loudest sound in the world is the deafening silence in your hotel room when you hang up from the kids at the end of a Facetime call, and you go instantly from being in a happy place talking to them to being all along in a big empty hotel room.
So what else to do but start drinking. I had picked up six 1 litre cans of Tuborg (outstanding work from the Danes) and I plan to polish them all off over the next few hours.
Its a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.
Location:On the Trans-Mongolian Express
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