Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia: WWCD (What Would Chingis Do)?by Randi / July 22, 2017
Once we decided to do the Trans-Mongolian instead of the Trans-Siberian (Mongolia and China instead of just lots more Siberia? not a hard decision), we knew we had to line up our dates so that we landed in Mongolia in time for Naadam, the most important festival and event in the Mongolian calendar (I mean it’s the only festival and event in the Mongolian calendar that I know, so I could be wrong about that but I’m probably right). The three-day festival is like the country’s own Olympics, celebrating the Three Sports of Men, or the Three Sports of Chingis (Genghis) Khan, something like that. In our English language pamphlets handed out in the stadium it says “Three Manly Sports” which is hilarious so let’s say it’s that one. Those three exalted sports are wrestling, archery, and horse-racing. Seems straightforward enough, right? Ha!
Naadam is held from July 11 to July 13, although the closing ceremony occurs on the night of July 12 and stuff still continues the next day or so but don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Naadams are held all over the country like each little town’s and region’s own little special olympics (lowercase for both is really important). But the big deal is in Ulaan Baatar, and it is CROWDED. All the city’s 1.5 million residents seemed to be in that stadium meant for maybe 5,000, plus all the people coming in from the countryside to see it. The three sports of men are a huge deal, apparently.
we’re men manly men we’re men in tights! yessss
We got tickets to the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony, and wrestling. A whole lot of wrestling. We would learn that you don’t actually need tickets for the sporting events, so we rocked up to watch a good amount of archery and the Mongolian version of beer pong as well.
The opening ceremony was very exciting — outside, milling about the endless rows of food and drink stalls (mostly selling khuushuur, the meat-filled empanada looking traditional food that is apparently like the official food to eat at Naadam), were TONS of people, and mostly Mongolian people, so there was this strong air of patriotism and excitement and just overall camaraderie – that is, until we went to our seats. We had seats in the so-called ‘tourist section’ because it’s in the shade (bless whoever made that happen), but it was as unorganized and chaotic as you could ever imagine. People were sitting in the wrong seats, in the aisles and on the bases of pillars and on the barriers to the entrance/exit. And I don’t just mean people. Whatever number you are imagining in your head as composing this crowd, multiply it by 10 at least. We had to literally climb over dozens of people to get into the entrance (like a regular stadium gate-by-gate open entrance, but in a stadium from medieval times)and then do the same through the aisles to get to our seats, where tourists were sitting because they don’t know how to read tickets but who even cares when Mongolian and foreign people are just sitting wherever the hell they want with no regard for safety? And there were plenty of stadium staff, volunteers, and police everywhere, so the people you hoped would get things in order – or at least form a path for when people had to exit – didn’t bat an eyelash at the scene. It was a terrifying thought, but we realized during this ceremony/scene of absolute dire chaos how, you know whenever you hear about a terrible accident in a third world country where hundreds or thousands more people die than seems correct or possible for such a building or type of accident? We realized that if anyone at all went wrong in this stadium, there was no way we or anyone could get out. It was really scary, actually. I couldn’t even leave to pee! I mean I tried eventually and stepped on or over 57 people and the only bathroom was halfway around the entire stadium (cool designing, guys) but I waited for so long. I was not eager to return afterwards because what if there was a fire!
the crowd just trying to get in
Luckily, there wasn’t! Thank you Chingis! Aside from the constant fear and the terrible bladder pain, the opening ceremony was pretty entertaining! The organizers had conscripted literally every single Mongolian child, teenager, and really adult to be a part of it. Every time we thought the performer crowd had reached its limit, another group of 100 people in a different costume would run out onto the field. There aren’t that many Mongolians. I really mean it, every single citizen was either on that field or sitting in my aisle.
I’m not really sure what story the ceremony told because the voice booming over the speaker system for two hours was of course speaking Mongolian but I’m going to try my best to relate what I saw. First, lots of men in costumes reminiscent of the dolls working for Lord Farquaad in Shrek came out on horseback for celebratory lap around the track. People lost their shit seeing horses gallop, I’m not kidding. I was sitting next to a midwestern American woman who was either on drugs or just simple because every little thing made her squee with glee. She also had the loudest clap I’ve ever heard and like it actually hurt my ears sitting next to her. That’s enough about her. So after the cavalry, 100 tweens dressed in white came out and did some weird modern dancing for a bit before they released doves, which made people lose their shit even more than the horses. I was the only person not screaming my aggressive approval, because that shit is super cruel. How long did you have those doves crammed in your pockets, you little shits? Some of the doves weren’t able to fly out of the stadium because their wings had been so damaged, so for the next two hours there were half a dozen doves just on the field. It was heartbreaking. I’m sharing all of this so the monsters among you reading this who are planning an event and want to release doves decide not to. For those of you reading who would never dream of doing such a bullshit thing and are as sad as I am now, I’m sorry and here is a picture of my doggie:
HI I’M THE CUTEST BEST DOG IN THE WHOLE WORLD YES I AM
that bird is a liar
So then lots more men in hilarious I mean very stately and regal period costumes came onto the field. We’re talking hundreds. As far as I could tell, they were telling the story of how Genghis/Chingis inspired his armies to fight against the Roman legions, and he brought about the fall of Rome. I’m not sure the dates line up for that to be historically accurate, and again I have no idea what was being said so the chances of this being what was actually on display are extremely low, but you try figuring this out.
After the Romans were sufficiently vanquished, Chingis and his manly men had to deal with the, um, wizards, and their dragons. Chingis whistled for a giant silver bird to lead his men to victory, and the giant Chingis float and the giant dragon floats moved about slowly and awkwardly but overall impressively until the Mongolians cheered their approval and another round of horse riders took a victory lap around the stadium. The only good part about the frequent horse laps is the group of men who come out behind them with brooms and poop-collecting pans.
WATER FIIIIIGHT
Then they had to vanquish the um gold alien men? So they called back upon the giant silver bird to help win that battle. Guys I really had to pee.
I LOVE GAAAAAAHHHHLD
But then it got even more exciting! Somehow they set up a huge stage in the middle of the field and DOZENS of people came out from underneath. How long were they cooped up in those holes!! Oh my god! Much worse than the guy in Ocean’s 11 and I’m sure much hotter. Dayum they just kept coming and coming more and more out from under the stage I feel bad for them but it was kind of hilarious in the pure clown-car aspect of it. BUT IT GETS BETTER. Because guess who Chingis had to fight next?
DINO-MITE
THAT’S RIGHT THE DINOSAURS! He didn’t even move from his giant float seat; Chingis was all ‘get out of my kingdom, dinosaurs! Go back to chilling in the Garden of Eden with Adam & Eve like they teach happened at the Creation Museum in Kentucky!’ And Chingis is so powerful and manly that they listened.
this one guy managing the tiny white bird is my fave
But the hell demons loved the dinosaurs and the dino banishment made them angry! Hellfireeee!
It’s okay! We will dance the demons back to hell!
But then that damn Roman army returned!
But then that damn Roman army returned!
And again, dancing will be the answer.
To celebrate, the bull and the elephant statues rocked around and then hundreds more people in various costumes danced (how did people remember all this choreography!) and balloons were released (don’t do that either!) and all these medieval-looking army people waved flags and then literally 200 tweens with rainbow umbrellas came out just to stand with their umbrellas around the track for everrrr. It was so hot and boring for them, just standing there. One little boy was not about to waste his time standing still when he was a part of Naadam. He twirled his umbrella, he danced, he did the funniest poses – peace signs, waves, even dap lol. He was my favorite part. He was everyone’s favorite; the whole section was laughing and loving him. It was so funny.
Next, I just still can’t believe. It was the presentation of all Mongolia’s animals. They literally walked oxen, camels, horses, sheep, goats, ibix (what is the plural of that…is that plural?), cows and bulls, freaking yaks, all around the track. Real ones. Those poop scoopers were busy. I thought we were being punked by this point. But it got even better! Just like at the Olympics, small groups of representatives from various organizations paraded around the track, each waving their banners and holding their signs. But instead of it being the athletes from each country, here it was just representatives of the companies sponsoring Naadam. At least I think it was sponsors. It might just have been all the Mongolian companies. Oh my god. Like all the airlines walked by with their flight attendants and pilots in their uniforms, various restaurants. Even Harley Davidson wheeled by, at which I overheard the most nauseating conversation from the old white American men sitting behind me: “You know, the Harley Davidson corporate office is now just a mile from where Julia lives!” “Oh that’s GREAT!” IS IT???
Just when you thought it was over, hundreds of young girls dressed in ice blue costumes came out and danced more.
Then everyone, all ten thousand participants, danced together and everyone was joyous and we figured that was it.
But then this guy came out.
I can’t make up a reason for this guy.
Okay, on to the Three Manly Sports! First of all, let’s forget about the horse-racing. It takes place 30km or so outside the city, so we weren’t going to see it anyway, but more importantly horse-racing is a cruel and inhumane torture method masquerading as a ‘sport’. Second of all, the three sports of men are really, apparently, four sports, because there’s a pavilion for ankle-bone shooting. What the hell is ankle-bone shooting, you ask? How can you not know? It’s when non-athletic men lounge around and flick sheep’s literal ankle-bones at targets. It is a drinking game from a USA state university gone official.
As for the two remaining and more legitimate sports. I was super excited. Not that I like wrestling, but it would be interesting to see it in a country that adores it so much. And archery! I liked doing archery at camp. And I like Robin Hood: Men in Tights. It would be just like that, right? Lol no. The rules for the Mongolian versions of these sports are unlike anything you’d have guessed. We’ll start with wrestling.
We were sitting in our seats in the tourist section of the main stadium (the second day was like a whole different place; no aisle sitting or anything! so much better!), waiting for some matches to start, before we realized…it had started. What looked like men in diapers and boas just wandering around and warming up was actually Mongolian wrestling. See, there is no time limit to their faceoffs, and no boundary limit, and they had multiple pairings going at once! So like 30 Mongolian men were on the field all walking around the entire length and width of it, biding their time before making a quick move that would knock their opponent down. They can go on forever! And it was hard to know who was actually going because there were so many at once. So awkward!
Every once in a while the crowd would roar and we’d catch the tail end of a brief but exciting bit of actual activity. It was interesting and so unlike any wrestling you’ve seen. Unless you’ve seen Mongolian wrestling. So the English language pamphlet we received says this: “Many foreigners are confused by Mongolian wrestling and may find it boring or too long. On the contrary, wrestling is actually the most interesting and entertaining Naadam sport.” OKAY I GUESS THAT’S THAT THEN.
I can’t even tell if the pics I’m posting are different
All the wrestlers are wearing speedo underwear and a frilly shrug around their shoulders. The goal is to have the biggest bare skin-to-clothing ratio, apparently. The wrestlers also wear important hats – red, with yellow stripes. The yellow stripes signify how high their ranking is. They take the hats off when they are about to actually wrestle, which helps you realize that they actually started the match and aren’t just still standing around. But they still are. Little bursts of action happen every now and then, but despite how long the matches can take and usually do take, the match (is it called a match? squirmish?) ends as soon as someone’s elbow or knee touches the ground. So it’s not like the man-on-man-on-mat type wrestling you may be imagining – it’s mostly just like pushing with hands while standing, and as soon as someone goes down at all, it’s over. And they are allowed to touch anywhere they want – except the head.
As for archery, we had even less of an idea what was going on. This was mostly due to the hour and a half of interpretive dance (soo weird) that began the archery trials on Day 1. We hurried over in hopes of seeing an arrow or two hit a target, and it was like two hours before they started actually shooting arrows and even longer before we realized that they don’t shoot at targets like we know archery to do. They shoot their arrows in high soft arcs that land in a pit of little red and brown leather jars! And they try to knock them over. It’s like bowling but with archery! It was so ridiculous!
the interpretive dance at archery
The archers have 40 shots, which seems like a lot! They have to get their high soft arc to land on the cylinders – any of them, there are no extra points for hitting the red ones in the center, which seems wrong – and push the cylinders away! They don’t get any points unless the arrow pushes cylinders at least eight centimeters away from its starting position! It is SO bowling!
archery bowling
The best part of both of these sports is that there are teams of judges dressed in traditional costume that surround each of the wrestlers, like their little entourage in their corner of the ring. But instead of smacking them and toweling off sweat, they are singing traditional phrases and songs about their performances. And in archery, the Greek chorus of judges stands by the targets and sings and does certain hand signs depending on whether and how many clay jars the arrow hit. HILARIOUS.
We heard that the champion of wrestling was given a Land Rover, another car, and an APARTMENT. No idea what the archer got.
Okay, so about that Mongolian version of beer pong, or when boys fold up paper into little paper footballs and shoot them at people during high school. Ankle-bone shooting is a team game, like bowling, so says the pamphlet, though I wanna be like, your archery is the bowling. Anyway, teams are crowded into tiny spaces and everyone is super friendly and sportsmanlike, to the point that no one is allowed to curse or get angry or say anything rude, and instead of disappointment when someone messes up, everyone – you guessed it – SINGS!!!
As you can see, Naadam was really interesting, overwhelming, and mostly fun. I’m really glad we got to see so much of it. Now I don’t need to go back to Mongolia. Despite how much fun it was to fear for our lives in a poorly constructed and managed stadium and how interesting it was to learn about new sports, my favorite part about Naadam was that one of the stalls had bubble tea. I had a strawberry tea one one day and a mango tea the next. I love bubble tea. I also had this super fun potato tornado!!
NO OMG my favorite part was this amazing Mongolian baby! He was so cute! I made Z pretend he was taking a picture of me so we could sneak a pic of the baby. Enjoy!
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Kiev (Kyiv though) Ukraine: Nice City, Interesting Sights, Indeterminate Vibe
I have to admit that I did not know about Kyiv. Not Kiev; I knew about Kiev. But that’s all I knew. Let me splain. As we planned our trip from Russia through Eastern Europe and back home to London, my husband said “we should go to Kyiv”- pronounced Keev. And I said “where is this ‘Keev’ I never heard of it” and he was like “Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine??” and I was like “no that’s Kiev and it is pronounced ‘Kee-ev'”and he was like “wat” and I was like “what is happening” and I learned that Kiev (‘Kee-ev’) is the Russian word for the city, and since gaining their independence, Ukrainians have been very serious about reclaiming their own word for their capital city, ‘Kyiv’ (Keev), the one syllable version that was unknown to me. Can we blame the Russian bots for my ignorance? Now I’m all smarted up and ready to talk about this great city, Kyiv. Or Kiev, if you wanted to I guess. I like the sound of the two-syllable evil version better, but my preferences as a non-Ukrainian don’t matter. Do as the people want us to. It’s Kyiv.
i know this is a hotel but come on pretty
Now that that’s sorted, let’s talk about this charming city. We were solidly back in Eastern Europe now, having left Mother Russia. Oh let’s talk about that leaving bit, shall we. After our less-than-a-day return to Moscow, we caught an overnight train – our second-to-last one of the trip!! – from Moscow to Kyiv. This train was the worst experience yet, isn’t that so fun??? I know some of you who kept up through all the China and Uzbek trains are like, what how on earth could it be worse? What about those 8 hour border stops where you had to sneak into the bathrooms to pee? What about the old Chinese lady in your bed? Well those were all terrible, yes, but hear me out. When we boarded, I thought we were soo lucky because the toilets were automated! Like Amtrak, with the lit-up flush buttons and stuff! They weren’t just holes opening up onto the track! Unfortunately, that luster was short-lived. Apparently the super-fancy (not fancy, basic technology) toilets very quickly broke, and since the conductor isn’t an engineer, he just duct-taped the toilet shut, rendering it unusable for the rest of the journey. I trekked down to the other end of the carriage with a sigh, which turned into a bigger, more horrified scream when I saw that that toilet was ALSO taped shut. The next cabin on was the restaurant car! No toilets in there! And the next one in the other direction was the overcrowded platzkart, packed full of people in bunk beds in the open plan, with lines for the toilet at all hours and so resentful of people from other carriages on their turf. Those toilets were basic open-the-bottom-onto-the-tracks; apparently only those passengers with doors were given the fancy easily breakable toilets. So every hour throughout the night, I had to clamber through the terrifying open section that connects carriages, stepping on the giant metal chain links that wrenched forward and back with the train’s movement and trying not to fall while jerking the heavy carriage doors open with all my might. Over and over again!
I HATE UNCLE TRAINY you see what I did there
Thank all the lucky stars, I was okay. Pissed off and full of impotent rage that I couldn’t actually direct at anyone (I never saw the conductor people, and also what else could they have done), but okay. I was so excited to see Kyiv, which I know I am spelling in the progressive way but honestly I can’t stop saying Ki-ev in my head. Anyway, I didn’t know much about Ukraine going in, except that I had just recently started saying it without the ‘the’ that so many Americans seem to think is required – seriously why do we always call it The Ukraine?? it’s so weird! – and that Oksana Baiul was my favorite skater in 1994 and the only winner to come out of the whole Tonya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan debacle. Well her and Margot Robbie. I was eager to learn more about the country through its well regarded capital city.
Our Russian language skillz would come in handy to understand all the signs in Cyrillic and all the similar sounding vocab, but despite much of the population speaking and/or understanding Russian, it would not be very wise to lead with speaking Russian. Since their independence from the Mother Country, Ukrainians have some tension, to say the least, with Russia, as we all do. We assumed, now that we were back in Europe, that it would be easy to get by with English. Surely most of the people know English! Spoiler, they don’t! It was very rare that we encountered English speakers. So follow Scar’s advice (not the Boy Scouts)(the Boy Scouts suck) and Be Prepared.
I realize this is just a hotel that we didn’t stay at and I shared a photo from a different angle above but it really represents the city’s aesthetic well
Our train arrived at about 7am, so we were exhausted and very much wanting to shower. Our last shower was in that random hostel in Moscow (was that the day before? Time had no meaning any longer). So we took a cab to our lodging. We were staying for the next few nights at the Theatre Boutique Apart-hotel, in a studio apartment situation that operated like a hotel, sort of, in that there was to be someone at a desk in the building of apartments to check us in. I initially liked how it sounded because theatre. The building was hard to find because it was set back in a kind of alley complex that was SUPER shady and graffitied and even at 7am just completely sketchy. I was skeptical. And unforch, because it was so early, no staffers were in yet. The maid was there, luckily, and was used to dealing with guests arriving at inopportune times, and she told us we could leave our stuff and come back in….six hours. I KNOW! I was soooo mad. Surely the main employee would be in at 9, right? And would call us and tell us that our room was ready before the godforsaken common check in time of 2pm? I could not wait six hours! But I had to! Ahhh! Anyway the ‘place’ we could leave our stuff was right there in the main hallway, reeeeeally not secure, so I was not feeling this place at all. Strike after strike. Z was like ‘who is going to steal our disgusting stuff tho’ and I was like ‘disgusting people tho’. I asked the maid if there was a bathroom we could use – we still needed to brush our teeth and stuff if we couldn’t shower yet! Well, this is an apartment hotel type jawn, not a hotel hotel with bathrooms on the main floor or anything, so no, the only bathrooms are in the rooms. Ahhhh! Luckily, the maid was super nice and showed us to one down the hall that was HER CLOSET. Like it had all her cleaning supplies in it and also all her snacks and changes of clothes and pictures and knick knacks and stuff and also a toilet and a tiny baby sink and it was sooooo awkward. I was so grumpy about this whole situation. But there’s no time to sulk when you are filthy and also in a new exciting city! We decided to go out and get food, and that story plus all related stories will come in a separate post about Kyiv food next. After that and some activities which I’ll talk about next, our room was ready, and it was GREAT. I was so happy because after how low my expectations had dropped since arriving, it was so much nicer than I hoped. It was clean and modern, all black and white and cool, with a nice bathroom and a big comfy bed with really good white sheets. I love white sheets. Anyway, so don’t judge a book by its cover or its lack of employees or main floor toilets and all that. I would highly recommend staying here.
St Sophia
The most important activity for us to do in the city center was see the St. Sophia Cathedral, the oldest surviving church in Kyiv. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and you know how we feel about them (loves it!) so off we went to see how the old broad looked after about 1000 years of hard living. The complex is lovely. Note, the Bell Tower costs extra to climb up, but I think it’s worth it. It’s right at the entrance to the whole complex and is nice to end your visit with after seeing the rest of St. Sophia. Also, the Bell Tower is the only spot in the whole place where you are allowed to take pictures so it was worth it just so I can break up all my nonsense with pictures.
climb this biznatch
We had a nice time seeing all the interior churchiness and singing about how Jesus is an ocean, as one does. It’s said that in all the churches in Ukraine that ladies have to cover their heads because god hates seeing us evil-doers or whatever nonsense your religion teaches you to keep you down, but I don’t remember anyone telling me to do so here. I think they are more lenient with tourists. Anyway, we ended with the Bell Tower climb, because we like climbing this. I counted about 200 steps up before I stopped and lost track, which isn’t as bad as it could be buutttt the stairs were pretty, um, not reassuring as you could look through all the thin metal and exposed piping of the layout and see down forever and it was a little anxy. As you would expect of me because this is what I do when traveling in foreign lands and living my life, I banged my head super hard on a metal pipe despite there being a colored swatch on that section because it was low and apparently everyone hit their head on it before they decided to paint the cautionary alert on it but of course I am special and hit my head after they flagged it. It was really painful and we had to stop for a few minutes for the pain to subside and for me to run through the customary thoughts I have every time I hit my head which invariably have to do with Natasha Richardson. Luckily I was okay though, and it seems like Liam is now too. And the views from the top were nice.
“And the hands get heavy oh the hands I don’t know what to do with the hands or the feet”
Our next sight to see was the Golden Gate in the middle of the city, standing like a fortress to remind us of all the fortifications they once needed (prob still need) against enemies. It was named after the Golden Gate of Constantinople, and although it was completely destroyed during the Middle Ages, it was rebuilt by the Soviets in the ’80s. It’s a tad controversial, because no images of the original gate actually exist, so the rebuilding process was under scrutiny from historians et al. who were like ‘no THIS is what it should look like’ ‘ no THIS is’ ‘no YOU’RE mother was a hamster’ and finally Vlad over at the Soviet Historical Society was like ‘no guys this is what we’re doing, you disagree I kill you’ or something probably close to that.
The gate/fortress jawn is right at Zolotovoritsky Square, a lovely little square near a park and a nice row of restaurants and stuff. It’s a nice little city.
Okay so I THINK there was a lil church at the top of the Golden Gate?? And this is me in it?
looks like a funky curved lens doesn’t it like i’m in a funhouse mirror or something
This city is so nice, full of statues and greenery and beautiful buildings. I keep saying that, don’t I, that it was so ‘nice’ and I really hate that word. But there’s not much more I can think of to describe it, because I never really clicked with it. It was great to be back in Europe, and to see such lovely architecture and important monuments and relics of history and all, but I never really jived (jove?) with Kyiv. My husband liked it a lot more than I did, but I didn’t necessarily dislike it, not at all. I just didn’t connect with it. It was nice to look at, nice to be in, but I didn’t feel much for it. My heart wasn’t in it, despite its checking off all the proper points on my list like it was my Walter or my Frank in a Nora Ephron rom com before I met Tom Hanks. (Tom Hanks, btw, would be my Warsaw. Stay tuned for that, our next destination.)
who dat ninja
now that I like
As always, I loved finding funny signs or product names in stores, and despite being back in Europe, we still found some, like this brand of milk that can probably only be enjoyed by blond boys named Chad who swim for just-sub-Ivies.
Or this shop, which we made a LOT of very bad jokes about because Tories are the ones who would cut all arts funding in the UK you get?
AIN’T NO SUCH THING
We had a great time exploring Kyiv. I know you’re probably thinking…you didn’t do that much, right? Well, that’s because our main activity warrants its own post (coming next, along with a food post). The main reason for our visit to Kyiv, besides logistics, was to visit Chernobyl. We took an all day (like seriously from dawn till nighttime) tour of the zone of the infamous, horrible nuclear disaster, and it was astounding. Devastating, heartbreaking, and we learned so much that is only now coming to light about the disaster. It’s a truly worthwhile trip to take if you are in Ukraine or in Kyiv, which, despite my not clicking with it whole-heartedly, I still do recommend visiting!
Another Overnight Train: Kyiv to Warsaw
Finally, oh dear god finally, we have reached the final overnight train of our 15 week Eurasian sabbatical. And it was a doozy. I guess you can’t peter out with a whimper, you gotta go out with a big bada boom. Not only did we have to share the cabin with a crazy lady, but we also had dirty sheets, smoky air, a customs border stop, AND a bogie change! You know how much I love bogie changes! If you don’t remember, that’s when they replace the wheels to account for changing tracks and it takes forever and the bathrooms are locked during it and it’s so loud so you can’t sleep through it and it’s all just a BIG OLD MESS OF FUN it’s not fun. I was just hoping that our destination, Warsaw, Poland, would be worth it, and by (prince) George it really, truly, incredibly was. But still this journey BAH LEW. Let’s check in with the little baby laptop.
Dear little baby laptop diary,
I’m on my last overnight train! At least for this trip! You know we will take them again soon I’m sure but I expect least a few months where I don’t have to ‘sleep’ on dirty sheets with strangers and smoke all around while I have to pee really badly and I am ready for that. This final journey leaves Kyiv/Kiev at 4:41 and arrives in Warsaw at about 8am. Well we aren’t terribly sure what time we arrive at our actual destination because the schedule has no less than SIX (6!!!) ‘Warsaw’ related stops listed! Three of them just say Warsaw but are 10 minutes apart? The others I think are the names of other train stations in Warsaw but ahh. The Warsaw group of stations span from 7:53 am arrival to 8:30 so we hope to find someone who can help ensure we don’t get off in the North Philly part when we want the 30th Street part. The schedule also says that the border crossing stop will only be an hour and fifteen minutes, which is entirely doable for my bladder. Huzzah and hooray! Also we don’t have any stops in Ukraine the entire way from Kyiv to the border, which we should reach about midnight, so that’s a solid 7 hours of relaxation time without worrying about bathrooms closing.
Well, little baby laptop with your balled-up fists pawin’ at the air, I spoke too soon, as I usually do. To start, the cabin does not have the beds on both sides as usual. No, it’s a triple where all the beds are stacked on top of each other so the room is teeeeeny tiny, as you can see above in the very badly lit photo. That tiny corner tabletop sticking out under the side of the window is the other wall, so you can see that there was barely enough room to stand between the edge of the bed flats and the wall let alone feel free to move about the cabin. Normally this would be fine if it were just Z and me in there, but we were sharing with a stranger. And not just any stranger, a Ukrainian who I’m gonna say was named Bianca. She was probably late 30s-40, she was blonde (as our Russian teacher would have snidely called her a ‘blondinchka’), and she talked more than anyone I’ve ever met in my life. Luckily we had the bottom and middle bed flats so we didn’t have to make Bianca’s unenviable climb to the rafters for her bed, but this setup meant that until bedtime, we all had to sit on that one bottom bunk together. And sitting close together means, to Bianca at least, that you have to talk. I didn’t even look at my Kindle for four hours.
She did not stop talking. I’m not much of a talker myself but this was beyond normal human levels of communication. She was Ukrainian but dating a man in Warsaw and I think the man was English or at least does a lot of business in England. So she was excited to talk to us about London, which she has been to many times. Bianca talked about their relationship, how long they’ve been together and where she hopes it goes even though we are STRANGERS. She said he’s in the restaurant business so they get to eat at all the most famous restaurants in England and Europe and if this were a normal conversation I would have asked if any were the restaurants that we’ve eaten at or heart of but I didn’t have the strength to attempt interrupting her and what’s more I really didn’t care. We learned all about the types of cars she has ridden in and which ones her boyfriend owns or plans to buy. I feel like she is probably having an affair with a married guy?
It was all so annoying but relatively innocuous at first, but as she got more comfortable/ran out of other words, she spoke about matters that revealed she was a HUGE F-ING RACIST and prejudiced against literally every disadvantaged group. So fun to realize that you are trapped in a box with a bigot for twelve more hours, right??? I just sat there and took notes on what she was saying the entire time so nb that these are all her words. She told us about the president of Belarus and how great he is, because he will fly around his country to see if people are farming (as they are supposed to) and if he sees anyone on a farm who is not working hard, he will throw them in prison and maybe that’s what Ukraine needs to be a stronger richer country! “This is great and smart job!” she told us. Then she told us how she saw a black lady in London who paid black men to have babies with her every year so she could keep collecting benefits and we were DONE with this bullshit by this point so Z explained (he was trying so hard not to scream) how that is one of the most trotted out Tory lies in their attempt shore up support in their (horrid) base for getting rid of social welfare. She didn’t really get the hint that we were Not Interested In Shittalking Minority Groups so she then told us about a group of Jews from Israel that she saw in a Polish airport. These Jews, she told us, had curly hairs (perish the thought!) and costumes (like Slutty Nurse?) and they smelled awful (true) and prayed together (you don’t fucking say) with everyone watching like it was a big to-do and now she doesn’t need to go to the circus because she saw that. So I responded “yeah all religion is super crazy right and every religion’s traditions are like a big show” and made her agree that way which felt like as big a win as I could get under the circumstances since she was clearly an Orthodox Jesus-lover of some sort. Ughhhh.
I would have taken even more bathroom breaks than necessary but it was not exactly comfortable in there. You know how most public restroom stalls are so poorly designed that you have to like squeeze around the toilet in order to open/close the door because people who get hired to do ONE JOB are incompetent? Well here you had to somehow squeeze behind the toilet in order to get inside and close the door. Brushing your teeth was not fun in there.
We got ready for bed finally, and shooed Bianca up to her loft hoping that it would make her quiet. The sheets are wet and smell like pee so that’s super fun. Gotta go out with a bang on this final overnighter! As much as I would have hated being on the top of the triple decker, and as much as I needed to be on the bottom because of my bathroom use, it was really scary to be down there. There was only about a foot and a half of space between my bed and Z’s – if I bent my knees they’d hit his bunk – and with two whole adult humans above me on those creaking flats that we put into place, I was pretty nervous that everything would come crashing down.
We slept a little and were woken up when we reached the border. And not that I should be surprised, but the schedule was FULL OF LIES. It wasn’t an hour. Ukrainian exit itself was two hours! We got to that stop at 12:30 am and stayed until 2:30 am because there was a bogie change. Arghhhh. It was incredibly loud and crazy to begin with, but then we heard men outside the cabin unscrewing stuff. We opened the door and saw guards taking the train apart – unscrewing wall panels, ceiling structures, taking the doors off, every single thing as they searched for contraband. I guess smuggling goods is big here as you get into the EU but damn them guards are THOROUGH. They’re literally taking the train apart before even looking at our passports! Screws were falling everywhere, clattering against the floors and walls. And I had to peeeeee.
Finally they came into our cabin and a mean lady made me take Z’s giant bag out from under my bed and unpack it, like all the way down to the ramen. She paused, deliberating whether the ramen was worth fighting, decided it wasn’t, and then left. It’s all such a ridiculous process. The schedule had said that customs would be finished at 3:10am but we didn’t even get there until 3:15am so I realized I had forgotten about time changes and stuff. Blahhhh what a night.
BUT WE’RE DONE! We landed, figured out which Warsaw we wanted of the six, and we were back in the EU! Hello! No more overnight trains! At least for the next few months! We felt like home was getting closer and closer, especially when the Warsaw train station greeted us with this:
We don’t even have Dunkin’ in London and they don’t even sell anything I want but still, home-y.
Man we were so tired so we tried to get an Uber, but because of how confusingly the streets around the station are laid out, the Uber couldn’t find us! So we had to cancel that and try another one gahhh Uber sucks but it was our only decent option right then. Finally one came and took us to our hostel, Dream Hostel Warsaw, which we had to walk the final bit of the way to get to because of the layout of the streets there. Ack Warsaw what is with your streets? We were so cranky and everything seemed to be going wrong, especially when we were told at the hostel that the room would not be ready for 4-5 hours. I wanted to cry. Traveling for so long is EXHAUSTING.
Luckily, Warsaw was worth all of this initial b.s. It was one of my favorite destinations, although it might all be due to finding the vegan pierogie place. Stay tuned for the next few posts, which will be objectively happier. Okay maybe not the one where we talk about the history but the food one for sure!
BYE TRAINS! *Phoebe whisper* forever.
