The next day we were starting our 30 hour train ride to Yekaterinburg. This commenced with a little stress as we arrived with 20mins to spare and we were not allowed to board the train only giving us an entirely Russian explanation. We deduced that we would have to get some tickets as we bought the train tickets on the Internet. So walking the 1km length of the train again we promptly find a ticket office and redeem our voucher which thankfully was an easy painless process.
On the train we shared our cabin with a 16 year old girl who was visiting her grandma. So to show her our friendly and good willed nature I gave her a mug of Moscows finest pre prepared Gin and Tonic. But after her third mug we failed to realised the extent of her intoxicity. She then consequently vommited in a letterbox size bin unfortunate to not make it to the toilet in time. Guilt was running through my blood so I cleaned up her vommit from the bin and on the floor surrounding it.
We had consumed a litre of vodka by now and had made friends with the food girl who gave us mars bars and about 5 litres of bottled water which would come in very handy the next morning. She kept on blowing us all kisses and saying I love you. But I looked beyond this fake generosity and acting as I knew she was just after a British Passport.
We met some fighter pilots in the dining cart some of which looked far too fat to be flying any sort of aircraft. Conversation took the form of passing the phrase book back and forth and pointing. But we soon got passed the small talk and got down to business with vodka and Champagnski. This continued until about 11pm for me when I had a complete black out and apparently had to be put to bed by the Major. The officers loved this and Nathan was the next casualty of the night hugging the toilet regurgitating his crab salad. He then proceeded to join me in our cabin asleep fully clothed on the unmade bed. From the sounds of things we missed out big style as Marcus was invited to share some fish with the Captain which was reported to be exceptionally good.
So our first long train journey was very eventful and entertaining making it a cultural exchange over several bottles of vodka.