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Published: July 12th 2009
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Old Soviet Train
The train from Istanbul to Bucharest. I guarantee this train was alive before I was. Go CCCP! Internet of sorts...though still paying by the minute, sadly...the router gods have yet to smile upon the rest of the world with abundant free wi-fi. Go USA! :-)
The last few days have been an absolute blur. The 7th I spent the day exploring Istanbul, then took the sleeper train overnight to Bucharest, Romania, passing thru Bulgaria. I shared the room with a Denver-ite, of all people, though he hadn't lived there in some time. The train was vintage Soviet sleeper, hardly the standard of comfort. We were awoke at 3 am when we pulled into the Turkish/Bulgarian border...so we all unloaded the train, bleary eyed, only to find that there was no one in the immigration office.
This didn't seem to concern our train staff too much...they had plenty of whiskey and cigs, so they were having a grand ol' time. It must have been 45 minutes before an official finally showed for the formalities.
Once in Bucharest, I had a tight connection to get my tickets and get on board the next sleeper for Budapest. Luckily the Romanians seem like pretty amazing folk, and I made it easy. Not before a weird dinner of mushy peas
and a huge peace of bread. Yum.
This time I had to approach the sleeper car attendant on the slighly newer (70's?) Russian train, and ask him for a sleeper compartment. He knew Romanian, I knew English, Spanish, and 1 year of Russian...you see where that got us. I paid him something he seemed to think was fair, and I got the whole room to myself. He gave me some vague price in Euros, I of course had Romanian money.
As I drifted off, we started ascending the Transylvanian Alps and the full moon lit the backs of the peaks. Very cool.
Once in Budapest, I had the whole day to explore...my next sleeper for Munich didn't leave until 10 last night. Budapest seemed much more like a "European" city than I would have expected...though, to be fair, until 2 days ago I don't think I could have found Budapest on a map, then suddenly there I was, exploring what was on offer. The Danube flows right through town, though their town planning could have benefited from some non-Soviet style ideas...the view of the river from the riverwalk is blocked by the tram line!
Climbing the
Don't let this happen to you
3 days on different sleeper trains. Look as good, you will not. citadel turned out to be the highlight, you could see the layout of the entire city and the Danube's course.
...sorry if this is not the most imaginative text I've ever written! Poetry and deep descriptions seem to escape me when I'm paying by the minute to come up with them. But the sleeper on Friday was great, again a room to myself. By now I was feeling positively disgusting, so ended up taking the "plunge" into the train sink to wash my hair. You may have questions, like "is it hard to wash your hair in a basin the size of a coffee cup while on a moving train?".
Why Yes, it is.
Once in Munich on Saturday, I got tickets all the way to Copenhagen. Those stories will have to wait until next time. Suffice to say, I'm booked on the ferry tomorrow (Monday) from Copenhagen to Oslo! Next time I write we'll be on Norwegian time (which, of course, is the same as Copenhagen). -steve g
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anonymous
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Exploring Istanbul... sigh... (Not to self: Do not envy, Bethany.) What did you think?