My big adventure day 13

We leave early for Barnaul to drop off Joni who flies from there the next morning and then to the airport of Novosibirsk where Charlotte catches her plane while Lizzie,Cris,Steve,Karo,Rod and I drive on to Novosibirsk station from whence our train to StPetersburg will leave. We arrive early in the afternoon and the train does not leave till midnight so we have some time to kill in this metropolis. First things first , exchange our e-tickets for real paper ones. The machine that could be used a few weeks earlier has been removed so in the usual Russian way we need to ask a gazillion different people how to go about it and we receive a gazillion different answers. In the end we manage and then proceed to put our luggage in lockers. Of course there are no simple lockers in which you drop some money and place your bags. No that would be too easy. The lockers are locked rooms with a lady inside who guards the lot. There are 4 different rooms and each is opened at a certain time slot. You have to find out which one befits your train ticket and then you are sent away again in confusion as you were supposed to buy a ticket at an other location before handing in your stuff. Nothing is written in English and no one speaks English so you can imagine it is no easy feat to get the luggage stowed. In the end we manage and wander into town. Obviously no tourists ever arrive here as we are stared at like circus bears, or maybe we just look very feral…

We have some food, drink some beers take some pictures of insanely large statues and finally return to the station where we have to retrieve our luggage. We schlep it up to the waiting hall where we sit and wait for our platform to be announced. This is of course not announced till about half an hour before departure. Fortunately we are offered assistance to get to the train by a lady who works at the station. There are no lifts and we drag our stuff down quite a few steps , I only have a fairly light backpack but not everyone travels so light

We arrive in time at our wagon and are welcomed by our attending service person. A nice lady who will guard over us like a mother hen for the rest of the trip. We crawl into our allotted beds after having crammed in the luggage and fall asleep lulled by the clanckclank of the train..