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Monday - April 21st 2003
Well it looked like it was a great race (I caught
the highlights on Euro News this morning) and this Formula One season
is already much more interesting than the last few!!
We left late for the train station but made the train okay…
looking forward to an 11-hour ride but at least this one was during
the day so it was a little more "interesting" than the
others.
Travel tip… bring those earplugs I mentioned before!! Russian
people seem to love to slam doors on trains and I think the people
next to us were actually practicing it! And bring a sink drain-plug!!
I am serious… if you like to have water in the sink for any
reason, you will need one because they simply don't exist here!!
Not in hotels, not in trains… nowhere!!
So we settled down to relax for a while and no sooner had we done
that than the lady "wagon attendant" came by to vacuum
the carpet… not once but twice!!
Okay… we went to the restaurant car and had a glass of wine
and a bite to eat with John and Tommi before finally settling down
for a "siesta"!!
Nothing much to see really and it reminded me of when I was in Australia
with Heep and Ansett, the domestic airline was on strike. Then we
had to do a lot of travel by train and the view when we woke up
was pretty much exactly the same as it was before we went to sleep!
Here though, as we came down from the Ural mountains into the flat
lands, the giant fir trees were again replaced by Silver Birch and
people were ice-fishing on the lakes!! Looked a bit dodgy to me.
Past many peasant villages the people seemed busy digging out from
this winter and stacking firewood in readiness for the next one.
As I looked out at this I realised that I couldn't even think about
what their life must be like, let alone imagine it. But they are
probably quite content and that may be food for thought.
As I write this we are approaching Kazan so it's time to pack up
and prepare for arrival. The promoter there is taking us to dinner
as soon as we "land" so maybe we'll sneak up to the bar
for a little vino.
More soon, God bless.
Next
day...
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