The Worst Trip of my Life - Part 1

I had to start preparing the things for the trip. First I told my German friends that I was going to Poland for the weekend and probably would come back Sunday night. They had the bad news that they were going to Ostrava (an eastern Czech city) to work and from there they would go to Germany to visit their family without date to come back. Summarizing, I couldn’t stay in the apartment by myself. Lucky me!

No problem, I called Chun Li and asked if I could stay there when back from Poland. The answer was positive and I needed to “move out”. I said goodbye to my German friends and received a advice: Beware with Russians in the train.

What kind of advice was that? I didn’t understand what they meant. I just packed up my stuff and took it to the Hakkinen’s house. I was well received from Mika’s family, as expected. I told them that I was going to Poland and was coming back on Sunday or even a bit later. I installed the Xbox (yeah, I needed to buy one, I just couldn’t stay there without playing hehe) and played a bit with Jerry before the trip. The train departure was scheduled for 9pm and I had lots of time till there. Chun Li said that she would take me to the train station, and with that I was calm.

At night I said goodbye to Mrs. Hakkinen and received another advice: Avoid sleeping in the train and beware with Russians.

Oh God! Again this Russian thing? What had they done? I imagine it was something related to the war. Maybe they still had some anger in their hearts, but why the German gave the same advice then? That I just couldn’t understand.

I took my backpack and went out to go to the train station with Chun Li. The Hakkens lived a bit far, close to Flora, and to get to our destination in the center it would take around twenty minutes. When we got out of the building it started snowing. Damn this snow. This thing is just nice in the movies.

The problem is that it wasn’t just some snow… It seemed more like a storm. The streets were completely covered and the traffic jam was horrible. The urban trains weren’t working and the only option was to get a bus to the nearest bus station to the metro, otherwise I would be doomed and lose my train to Poland.

Thank God a bus passed while we needed. I was really afraid of losing my train to Łódź. We headed to the metro station and from there Chun Li and I managed to get to the main station quickly. Chun Li already knew the platform and where should we go, so after leaving the metro we ran to the place.

When we got to the platform we saw the train waiting for departure. You in Brazil must be thinking about those nice trains that you’d seen on TV. Haha, I also had that disappointment. The Czech and Polish trains are something “amazing”. Just take a look at the photo.

Chun Li asked a man who worked there if that was the right train. He was Polish and the conversation didn’t go that nice. She almost got no information. The languages are from the same family but they are not THAT similar. But as we seemed lucky that night, there was a Czech man who was going to a city near Prague that told us that was the right train. Chun Li also asked if I could stay in the cabin with him, it was safer to travel this way in that train. He answered that I could.

I said goodbye to Chun Li with a hug and got into the train with the man. He just spoke German and Czech, so we hadn’t much to talk about. In less than two minutes the train was departing to its destiny, Katowice. You must be thinking that the train trip would be really calm and nice. But come on, if it would be something like that it wouldn’t be MY trip. This trip was the worst in my life.

The train headed to the Czech border and was supposed to get divided in Ostrava. I should stay in the right wagon at the division time, it would be crazy to ask someone if I was or not. The man who was sharing the cabin with me said that he was leaving on a station not that far away, and that I should be lucky in the moment of division. That was what I could understand in German. He also explained that he was a cook in the Police, and that made me a bit relaxed, at least he knew how to manage a knife (LOL), and told me that when he left the train I shouldn’t sleep because of the Russians.

I was getting nervous about this “Russian” thing in trains. I had nothing with me but money, but the thing is that this conversation was getting repetitive and boring. I didn’t express myself about it but I started feeling afraid. The train was going fast and making lots of noise. After three stops I felt the trip would be fine and relaxed a bit more.

It was snowing like hell when we arrived at a small city called Konin. The train was stopped for a while, some people got in, and we prepared for departure. We started moving slowly… and puff. The train stopped again. The reason? The energy cables were frozen and there was no contact with the train’s stem. The man who checked the tickets came to inform that it would take a while. A while? If it would take more than one hour I probably would lose my connection in Katowice. And guess what, it took one hour and a half for us to receive more information.

Within this period I’d lost my hope to get my connection. After the cook explained the situation I gave up and asked if he wanted to have a beer. We went to the last wagon and bought five bottles each. We came back to the cabin and tried to understand each other. People who know me also know that I speak nothing in German, I just know some words, but I tried… I really tried hard, and it was a bit funny. During the second bottle of beer, the ticket checker came back to our cabin and started talking to the cook.

There was another train for him, so he could go forward to his destination normally. Lucky bastard! I had to stay there alone trying to wait for the solution of the problem while he was going. The cook said goodbye, left his three beers for me and got out of the train

I didn’t have much to do, just wait or wait. The cold weather was invading the cabin, because since there was no electricity in the train, the heaters were off. It was my lucky night for sure. I would die drunk and frozen inside a train that headed to nowhere. I decided to walk a bit through the train and by some chocolate. On my way I heard some people speaking in some strange language. Was it Russian? I would never know, but I had other surprise. I saw two guys speaking Portuguese. Ahh, finally some beautiful language to speak. I came closer and joined the conversation. They were going to Krakow in Poland and didn’t know what was happening. They were at the sleeping wagons. That time I was a bit jealous that they have a bed but since all those advice about “Russians” I felt lucky I had normal tickets, as everyone was telling me not to sleep. I didn’t take long with them, they had such a boring conversation.

I went back to my smelly cabin after buying the chocolate. The place just smelled as beer. I went to the corner, shrank myself to warm me up and continued drinking beer. After two hours and a half we were still stuck at the same place. Certainly I would lose my connection and what was supposed to be a nice trip, with all that cold, became torment.

To be continued… 

BR Na Europa