We had to get up early today to catch the 9am train back to Petersburg. We stumbled downstairs to find that a significant portion of the group was also planning who they were not going to sit with on the train back. Breakfast, hotel checkout, and schlepping our bags to the station was pretty uneventful, except that Natasha somehow managed to guilt-trip the hotel into giving Laura her money back. But now begins the chronicle of the epic train ride. Which I realize isn't really that epic, but it was more than a day, and it made me realize that the train is totally like the circus, only on wheels.
Anyway, Laura got on the train first and managed to snag us the last two bunks in our section, which actually ended up being in a coupe with Russians, rather than other Americans. While slightly frightening, it was okay. The woman on the bottom bunk didn't talk to us at all, and the man who had the top bunk across from us also didn't really talk to us for most of the ride. There were two asiatic looking dudes who had the aisle bunks who stared at us a lot but didn't talk to us.
I did a lot of people watching, because it was more interesting than doing anything else. As it turned out, in the carriage was our big group of Americans, and also a fairly large group of Russian teenagers, probably between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. I'm not sure how the Americans behaved because they were sitting behind me and I didn't go hang out with them, but from where I was sitting, I could see into the Russian kids' coupe. They were all pretty drunk at some point or another during the ride and spent a lot of it jumping around on the bunks and hitting each other. At some point, the man with the lower aisle bunk got on the train and kicked the kids out of his bunk.
When this particular man got on the train, he was pretty obviously sloshed to the gills. I'm pretty bad about telling when folks are drunk, but this dude was ripped. He actually reminded me a lot of Dennis. Not that I'm saying that Dennis is frequently drunk, although I'm sure that he is, but more the way that he looked and interacted with other people, I guess. Anyway, when this dude got on the train, the train lady asked him for his ticket, and he had a hard time finding it. Then when she started giving him a hard time, he kept digging through his passport, and then handed her the ticket with a big, slow, goofy grin. Then he swatted the kids off his bunk and took a nap. When dude woke up, he started talking with the Russian kids, pestering them for a drink, and mildly hitting on the girls. Girls are about fifteen, dude's at least thirty. Dude also came on board the train with a crew, as I found out later when they all went down to the restaurant car and returned with beers.
The highlights that followed their return are as follows. They settled in with the Russian kids, but were apparently making the girls uncomfortable or talking inappropriately, or something, because the train lady in charge of law and order came back and yelled at them and told them to go to their own bunks. Which they did for a little while, but then they broke out the cribbage board. The crew was sitting up by the other American students, so dude went up and joined them and then they were all playing quietly for awhile. But then there started to be some kind of ruckus, although whether it was just among the Russians and somebody cheating or somebody not getting a turn or whether it also involved the Americans at that point was unclear. But the train lady came back and calmed things down for awhile. But then the drunk dudes started talking with the American students and trying to hit them up for money, and apparently making lewd remarks or just generally touching the girls. So the train lady came back again and sent them all to their bunks, and Margaret told everybody not to speak Russian with the drunk guys. At some point, one of them yelled, "khui na blad'," which is really super super bad (and loosely translated means something like "fuck the whores" except way worse). In the morning, the wake'n'bake crew made their pilgrimage to the restaurant car and returned a little the worse for wear to resume their harassment of the American students.
But meanwhile, life in my compartment was pretty quiet and sleepy. I did some studying for the GRE and I napped a little, and talked to Laura some. Ate, and then repeated the above actions. Of course, all this was interspersed with watching all the drama. Laura complained that the younger asiatic dude kept staring at her, and she didn't want to go to sleep, because then he would be looking at her while she was sleeping. I felt compelled to point out that if she was sleeping, she wouldn't know that he was watching her, so it didn't really matter. She told me the next morning that her leg spazmed in the night and the asiatic dude across the aisle kept tapping her foot until she woke up. Then he pointed at the ceiling, at she thought that he wanted her to turn the light on, and she couldn't figure out why he didn't just ask the train lady. Although, as she was putting her mattress away the next morning, she realized that the dude probably thought she was cold and was trying to tell here that there were blankets on the shelf above the top bunk. Another lost in translation.
I also spent a little while talking with the dude in our compartment before I went to sleep. He seemed like a relatively normal thirty-something guy by the name of Volodya, who lives and works and Petersburg, but has family in Kazan. He wanted to know what I thought of Russia, and then wanted to know if I'd been to Hollywood and Disneyland and what that was like, and whether we had a lot of tornadoes in the US. Uh, what? Maybe in the south or midwest sometimes, I guess... He knew how to say "My name is Volodya," "table," "hello," and "fuck you" in English. He said that the phrase "fuck you" was a very good one to know and that it helped in a lot of situations. I told him that actually, probably not. He told me that I shouldn't go to Kiev because it's boring there, other than St. Sophia's. I'm totally still going anyway. And it will be a train odyssey. Because fuck if I'm bussing it from northern Russia to the fucking Ukraine. I did pretty well with the whole conversation thing, but I did make a faux pas when I asked him if he spoke any Tatar because the our guide said that kids who grew up in Tatarstan had some classes in Tatar. He got a little offended and said, "No. I'm a Russian," but then he realized that I'm just a dumb American and didn't mean to imply that he was an ethnic minority, and thus NOT RUSSIAN, and explained that of course, he knew a few words, but no, he didn't speak it.
But yeah, train adventures...
Anyway, Laura got on the train first and managed to snag us the last two bunks in our section, which actually ended up being in a coupe with Russians, rather than other Americans. While slightly frightening, it was okay. The woman on the bottom bunk didn't talk to us at all, and the man who had the top bunk across from us also didn't really talk to us for most of the ride. There were two asiatic looking dudes who had the aisle bunks who stared at us a lot but didn't talk to us.
I did a lot of people watching, because it was more interesting than doing anything else. As it turned out, in the carriage was our big group of Americans, and also a fairly large group of Russian teenagers, probably between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. I'm not sure how the Americans behaved because they were sitting behind me and I didn't go hang out with them, but from where I was sitting, I could see into the Russian kids' coupe. They were all pretty drunk at some point or another during the ride and spent a lot of it jumping around on the bunks and hitting each other. At some point, the man with the lower aisle bunk got on the train and kicked the kids out of his bunk.
When this particular man got on the train, he was pretty obviously sloshed to the gills. I'm pretty bad about telling when folks are drunk, but this dude was ripped. He actually reminded me a lot of Dennis. Not that I'm saying that Dennis is frequently drunk, although I'm sure that he is, but more the way that he looked and interacted with other people, I guess. Anyway, when this dude got on the train, the train lady asked him for his ticket, and he had a hard time finding it. Then when she started giving him a hard time, he kept digging through his passport, and then handed her the ticket with a big, slow, goofy grin. Then he swatted the kids off his bunk and took a nap. When dude woke up, he started talking with the Russian kids, pestering them for a drink, and mildly hitting on the girls. Girls are about fifteen, dude's at least thirty. Dude also came on board the train with a crew, as I found out later when they all went down to the restaurant car and returned with beers.
The highlights that followed their return are as follows. They settled in with the Russian kids, but were apparently making the girls uncomfortable or talking inappropriately, or something, because the train lady in charge of law and order came back and yelled at them and told them to go to their own bunks. Which they did for a little while, but then they broke out the cribbage board. The crew was sitting up by the other American students, so dude went up and joined them and then they were all playing quietly for awhile. But then there started to be some kind of ruckus, although whether it was just among the Russians and somebody cheating or somebody not getting a turn or whether it also involved the Americans at that point was unclear. But the train lady came back and calmed things down for awhile. But then the drunk dudes started talking with the American students and trying to hit them up for money, and apparently making lewd remarks or just generally touching the girls. So the train lady came back again and sent them all to their bunks, and Margaret told everybody not to speak Russian with the drunk guys. At some point, one of them yelled, "khui na blad'," which is really super super bad (and loosely translated means something like "fuck the whores" except way worse). In the morning, the wake'n'bake crew made their pilgrimage to the restaurant car and returned a little the worse for wear to resume their harassment of the American students.
But meanwhile, life in my compartment was pretty quiet and sleepy. I did some studying for the GRE and I napped a little, and talked to Laura some. Ate, and then repeated the above actions. Of course, all this was interspersed with watching all the drama. Laura complained that the younger asiatic dude kept staring at her, and she didn't want to go to sleep, because then he would be looking at her while she was sleeping. I felt compelled to point out that if she was sleeping, she wouldn't know that he was watching her, so it didn't really matter. She told me the next morning that her leg spazmed in the night and the asiatic dude across the aisle kept tapping her foot until she woke up. Then he pointed at the ceiling, at she thought that he wanted her to turn the light on, and she couldn't figure out why he didn't just ask the train lady. Although, as she was putting her mattress away the next morning, she realized that the dude probably thought she was cold and was trying to tell here that there were blankets on the shelf above the top bunk. Another lost in translation.
I also spent a little while talking with the dude in our compartment before I went to sleep. He seemed like a relatively normal thirty-something guy by the name of Volodya, who lives and works and Petersburg, but has family in Kazan. He wanted to know what I thought of Russia, and then wanted to know if I'd been to Hollywood and Disneyland and what that was like, and whether we had a lot of tornadoes in the US. Uh, what? Maybe in the south or midwest sometimes, I guess... He knew how to say "My name is Volodya," "table," "hello," and "fuck you" in English. He said that the phrase "fuck you" was a very good one to know and that it helped in a lot of situations. I told him that actually, probably not. He told me that I shouldn't go to Kiev because it's boring there, other than St. Sophia's. I'm totally still going anyway. And it will be a train odyssey. Because fuck if I'm bussing it from northern Russia to the fucking Ukraine. I did pretty well with the whole conversation thing, but I did make a faux pas when I asked him if he spoke any Tatar because the our guide said that kids who grew up in Tatarstan had some classes in Tatar. He got a little offended and said, "No. I'm a Russian," but then he realized that I'm just a dumb American and didn't mean to imply that he was an ethnic minority, and thus NOT RUSSIAN, and explained that of course, he knew a few words, but no, he didn't speak it.
But yeah, train adventures...
posted by hillary at 6:38 AM
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