Long relaxing day as the train chuntered through the rest of Poland and then reached the border with Belarus - 1st stop in the former USSR. An amazing experience with changing the bogies - the track width is different in Russia and Europe so the whole train is lifted up, the undercarriage removed and replaced - takes many hours but is incredible to watch. Only downside being the lack of toilets for 6-7h - amazing how this thought makes you think of nothing else but needing the loo! Men crawling underneath train was very scary to watch! Women entered the train [View Full Entry]

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Thank you Gidget, and our Warsaw hosts; We loved collaborative gardening and the view. Geraniums red and a box of herbs Are happily blooming on your porch anew. This dance M gave for your orange tree Was full of zest and citrus zip... The city winked its dark sunset song To carry us through on our train journey so hip. [View Full Entry]

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Woke up at 5pm, I felt really hung over, after a few too many beers at quiz night. We did not win again; the Dog (my great and wild living friend) was looking up the answers on his mobile phone and we still came third. The driver was a talker who never shut up all the way up to the airport...”Where are you going mate?” “Prague” I told him, which was kind of the truth. I really could not face his questions about Belarus. “Yeah just going on a stag night with team Moston”...I gave him a 2 pound tip and [View Full Entry]

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Taking the night train from Kiev to Minsk last Friday, the Belarussian border guards first stamped my passport as their colleagues in other contries would have done. Because of the upcoming elections however, they didn't give me my passport back but probably called the capital. After some twenty minutes I was asked to leave the train with my lagguage (around midnight). Without any explanation they showed me a room where to spend the night. The timetable on the wall said, that there will be a train from Minsk back to Kiev at 3.36. Just in time, I got my papers back [View Full Entry]

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After a most wonderful night sleep in Warsaw, I had breakfeast with the Ambassador and his wife, overlooking the garden and then prepared to go to the station to get my train to Moscow (going through Minsk). As I went down, something happened to me which most horrible people fear with great apprehension: having to meet again face to face the people I traumatised in Warsaw during my turbulent youth. I met again (with great pleasure) our old driver Marek who used to take me to school, for walks in the park and generally take care of me when my parents [View Full Entry]

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I visited Minsk as well as Breast, Belarus. [View Full Entry]

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Came here to see the one of the Great Patriotic Battle grounds of WWII. [View Full Entry]

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Friday 7th September 1990 I awoke fretting (no pun intended) about the chords to "Yesterday". When we got to the school hall for the concert, there were hundreds of people there. The enormous hall was jam packed with, pupils. First surprise was a presentation to Trystan to mark his eighteenth birthday (tomorrow). He was given some flowers, a medal and a plastic concrete mixer to remind him that the purpose of life is to build achievements or something like that. This proves that the Russians do have a sense of humour after all, just that it's very odd indeed. A bunch [View Full Entry]

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About This Document Where it Came From In Summer 1990, I went on a school exchange trip to Minsk. I kept a handwritten diary throughout the trip. When we got back, I typed the diary up on the family BBC Microcomputer, editing and sanitising it for an audience of family, teachers and friends, to whom I gave printed copies. This year, 2002, my parents gave me the floppy disk it was on. I searched long and hard for a way to transfer data from BBC Micro disks to a PC. All the solutions involved finding a BBC and making a special [View Full Entry]

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