He had read in Lonely Planet that the transit visa should cost 53 US dollars. When he offered it to the lady at the desk, she yelled out: "Not 53 dollars!"... "43 dollars!" Ok, sorry to bother you. So yep, he got the visa, no worries.
As you might know, Russia is a big country. Really? Yep, it is. When you're going from the west to the east, you will notice. This meant we constantly had to change the time on our watch (Yeye, on the iPod since the wrist watch is lost and never to be found). Got to say this wasn't such a big problem, if it hadn't been for one thing; the restaurant wagon. For some reason it was run by Russian personel instead of Chinese. And for some reason it was on Moscow time the whole way. Lunch? Closed. Dinner? Closed. But! On two occasions we actually sort of made it to the other side of the door, yey.
On our way to Mongolia we went on a Chinese train. After hearing about people going on the Russian one, we think this was a good choice. Why you wonder? First of all the train was somewhat clean. Well, and the personel didn't yell at us, instead they tried to sell us beer.
Spent one of the first evenings on the Transsiberian train together with a bunch of german guys. Music, laughter, beer drinking and some interesting discussions. Next day when we met the hosting couple of the party at a station, they didn't look all that happy. They had got new companions. Not fun. Now they, according to themselves, had to sit still, don't talk and keep all there stuff tucked in. No more party wagon.
One day at work, I (Jenny) sat down and had a cup of coffee with one of my colleagues. Ok, perhaps not "one day", more like "plenty times a day, four times a week"... Yeye let's continue. We started talking and got into a discussion about the transsiberian railway. As I mentioned that we were going on it this summer, she said that yep her family was too. Another day drinking coffee, the colleauge and I talked about when to head there according to our bookings. Sometime in July we both said. Yet another day drinking coffee, we talked about weeks. Another and another and another. And yes (as you might have figured out by now) of course we were suppose to get on the train at the same departure! Say hey to Ann-Marie!
