Day 7

At Kirov I walked down the station platform and bumped into Shane, Chris and Jeff. I'd been corresponding with Shane about this trip for two months via the GapYear.com website. It had been useful talking with someone about what all this was going to be like so it was good to meet up finally.

1 My Cabin Mates

Just a note on food and drink while I think of it. At the end of each carriage is a coal-fired samovar dispensing very hot water, so that's good for making noodles, cup-a-soups and tea/coffee. I also have some fruit, ham, cheese, bread, cereal bars and chocolate. For drink I bought vodka, beer and water. Most of what I've listed can also be bought from the babushkas (old Russian women) on the platforms we stop at. There's also a restaurant carriage which isn't as overpriced as everyone seemed to think.

2 The Cabin

It was Shane's birthday and he came up to my cabin with Jeff and Chris in the early afternoon and we finished off all my vodka with Kasja and Malin my cabin-mates. By early evening our cabin was filling fast with people sniffing out a party! For the rest of the evening an average of 10 people were crammed into the cabin including two new Swedish girls Ida and Lova. We were drinking local Baltika beer and had an ipod and speakers for music. Several restaurant carriage trips later (vodka and baltika) it was time to call it a night. We may have annoyed our neighbours so we told our guests that we'd been in their cabins over the following nights.

3 Pulling us to China

4 Party on!

5 Newcomers!