You may be thinking that I’m really out of luck. Not really. After three hours stopped in the same place the train could move. I was all covered in jackets, hats, three socks… The cold weather was terrifying, but as the train started moving again, the heaters worked. It was half past twelve when we left Konin. The beer smell made the air in my cabin terrible, but what could I do? At least now I was a bit warmer.
The trip continued and the cold as well. Suddenly I saw at the cabin door a tall guy covered by the darkness looking inside. It wasn’t the old man checking the tickets nor no one known. It was the famous “Russian” that they told me to be careful, for sure.
I was shivering but I couldn’t show fear. Just like me, he was covered by the hood of his jumper and I couldn’t see his face, just his chin. I was huddled in the corner trying to protect myself from the cold, and now being afraid of that situation. He put his hand on the doorknob and was about to open it. I jumped up from the seat and grabbed an empty bottle of beer. I took out my hood and made a negative sign with my finger. Where did all that courage come from? The guy was twice my size and looked stronger. But I was courageous. Looked at him, turned on the light and continued making a negative signal. I was still shivering, but put some evil smile on my face. The man, still using hood, looked at my face and ran to the left side.
Uff! What a relief. I was about to poop myself there. I locked the cabin door and closed the curtains. I just didn’t want to pass through that again, it would be too much for my small heart. I sat and relaxed a bit thinking: “Damn this freaky coward ‘Russian’, he was afraid of the big nigga here. Haha”. But deep inside I was still shivering. I didn’t know if it was because of the cold or fear, I was still shivering. After calming down a bit I felt the heaters stopped working again.
The train was stopping slowly. We went out of electricity again, but this time in nowhere in the middle of the night. Oh! What a pity… Why did I promise I would go there? Couldn’t I go back to Prague from there? Why did I need to suffer that much? It wasn’t fair. I still had two more beers, but I was bored of drinking alone. It was depressing with all that cold, that even the beer didn’t make me warm.
The train was stopped half an hour in that place. We were surrounded by some forest. I looked through the window and just saw snow coming down. The world was white and cold. Where the heck was I? I wasn’t even out of Czech Republic. Shameful. The train started moving again after that short period. I had some sandwiches I bought in Bob’s for critical moments during the trip. That was the one.
I couldn’t handle anymore. The trip was supposed to be nine hours and I had already eight hours in that freaky train and I was still in Czech. It was unbelievable. I ate the sandwiches and just that. I had no liquid but beer to drink, I forced it because I was bored with beer and just couldn’t drink it anymore. I was just eating and praying that at least we arrive in Ostrava. The train started moving. Seemed that my prays were working. The “Russian” guy also didn’t appear. The train finally was heading for its destination.
The train arrived at Ostrava around half past five. The sky was still dark and I was still being afraid of some “strange” appearance. At least it stopped snowing. It was the sign that the rest of the trip should go well. The old guy that checked the tickets tried to get in my smelly cabin. I opened the door and he asked me to show the ticket. I showed two I had for the trip, the one for Katowice and the other one for Łódź. The man started saying a lot of things that I just couldn’t understand. I had no idea which language he was using. I just couldn’t understand and he started getting mad.
I’m not dumb. I took the ticket and asked him to show me which direction I should go. First I pointed to the name on the ticket, Katowice and then to the right and left. The damn man pointed to the left. If he did it before it would be much easier and quicker. Stupid guy and he spoke spitting. Then suddenly something came up into my mind. “Oh God, the ‘Russian’ ran to the left, I’m doomed.” It had a bad luck. Finally when everything seemed to go well this happened.
I took my stuff and went to the wagon that the old man told me to go. I found a free cabin, no one inside. It didn’t have the bad smell of beer and just because of that was good enough. I didn’t have any food with me and also couldn’t go out of the train to buy anything, it could departure at anytime and there was nothing opened there. The only thing I could do was to wait again. One hour and a half doing nothing inside the cabin. If I knew I would go to see the city and come back, I had enough time for that. But no… I needed to stay there awake afraid of the “Russian”, hungry, asleep and tired like hell.
The train started moving after this time and finally we left Ostrava. I prayed a lot for the crazy train not to break again. The next stop would be in Katowice, if nothing went wrong of course. I knew I would lose the connection, besides the train that I was supposed to get would leave Katowice at 6 am and it was already half past five. At least nothing wrong happened in this part of the trip. The train crossed the border and I was already in Poland, nothing bad happened. It stopped snowing but the cold was worse and worse. The train approached the final destination and I could see some small cities in Poland.
They were really scary. If you watched the movie “Lord of the Rings” I would make a short comparison, the small cities looked like “Mordor”. Gray, sad and depressing. Seemed like they just got out the Second World War. I felt pity of the people living there. How come they lived like that? It didn’t even seem like Europe. I was imagining my final destination. If it would be like that I didn’t know if I would handle. The train started crossing Katowice and it was even worse. The city was ugly and freaky. Looking through the window I thought straight away that I should go out of there as soon as possible. Where the hell was I?
As the train stopped at the station, I left with a huge smile on my face. Finally I was in half way or even a bit further. Priceless Girl was aware that I wouldn’t arrive at the time I told her before. I sent her a sms through the phone Mrs. Hakkinen gave me and I explained her the situation. I left the platform and went to the hall to check where and when should I get the next train.
The station was terrible. It was falling apart. So different from Prague where everything was organized and clean. My first impression of Poland was the worst ever. That for me was like purgatory. I got inside the hall and checked the time table. Everything was made in some old way that I couldn’t understand what the heck was it trying to say. A bunch of numbers and city names spread with some other numbers that might be the hour. Everything was unreadable. So I decided to go to the information desk.
The queue was a bit big but it was going fast. The cold inside the station was freaking unbelievable. There was no heating. I’d already put another pair of socks and it wasn’t enough. The skin seemed to rip. I needed to get into some coffee shop or I would die frozen there. But first I needed to know when was the train.
It was my turn to ask for information and I was ready to start speaking English. An old lady was at the desk so I asked her:
- Please, I want to know which platform I should go to get to Lodz.
The lady was looking at me with a “I don’t get it” face. Maybe if I said the name of the city correctly she would get it but “Lodz” meant nothing to her. I asked again and nothing. So I started repeating the city’s name.
- Lodz! Lodz!
Nothing worked. I tried: “Lodz, piui!” trying to make her understand the train’s noise, and nothing. The woman got mad at the desk and the queue was starting to get bigger. There was an old man that was releasing smoke from his nose because the damn queue didn’t move. So I did the same as before. I took the ticket and showed the lady. She looked at it and said:
- Ahhh! Łódź! Łódź!
- Of course it is a train, you dumb. – I answered randomly.
As I said in previous post, Łódź, should be read like Údi; and saying the name of the city in the correct way, the woman seemed to make the “piuí” sound of the train. By the end I was the dumb.
The woman started saying a lot of things in Polish. What a strange language. It managed to be worse the Czech. I didn’t understand a single world, she didn’t understand what I was saying, the guy behind me was about to hit me and I was getting tired of that situation. I asked her to show the computer screen because that was annoying already.
Finally I got what I wanted. Everything was on the computer screen. Platform, time and everything. I thanked her and went out of that damn desk. It was time to have a coffee to warm up my chest, it was -23º and I was almost dying there…
To be continue…
BR Na Europa!
P.S.: I want to say that i have no problem or discrimination with Russian people. I also have Russian friends and don't want any misunderstanding with them.
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