Yekaterinburg

That night in the train I slept in a upper dbed, along the corridor, so with my head to de front and with my legs to the tail of the train. I slept at the and of the corridor, near the toilet, and inbetween me and the toilet was a groep of 6 children, 3 bous and 3 girls, 9 to 11 years old and one mother. The bed under me was of a little dilligent girl, who started talking to me first, which I enjoyed ofcourse, because she was very cute and we had some conversations via translate, thought she understood quite a lot words english for her age. The boys and other girls came and showed me some laughing mirror ap and had fun with each other and me showing the funny ap. After this nice and interesting start with cute little smart russian children I had a really bad night. The tracks of the train are really bad so the train shocks from left to right, that hard that when you just stand right up in the corridor without holding the beds, you will be smashed against the walls and beds. The beds were very small, so I could only lie on my side or back with knees up high. Next to this it was really hot in that upper bed, I checked the (maybe broken) celcius meter the next morning and it said 35. Well in my bed I could have been at least 30 indeed. And at last men were going to the toilet to smoke until 4 am wich had as cause that the wagon at my bed was full of smoke because the doors didn't keep the smoke in the toilet, ofcourse. So coughing, sweating, and when I laid on my side, being smashed to the right and left. Next to this all, there was sadly a drunk man who walked up and down the corridor all night, and I made one time contact with him because he looked at me I he said something in russian, and I said I was english, then he said something short and walked on. I had no clue what that was and it didn't sound nice so I as just concerned with this man walking beside all the time.. I actually was too concerned oubout agressive oncontrolled behaviour, like the other drunk guy in the former train, that i couldn't sleep. So I tryed to make again contact with him, showing him I was nice, this was the only thing I could think of. I did that and it went well, he laughed about something, we shook hands and I felt better. But because of the earlier mansioned things I still couldn't really sleep. The next morning I made contact with a russian guy of my age speaking a very little english, having a ponytail, whom shooked hands with the night before because he took up I played in a band. I was a hard rock singer himself, and we shared phone numbers so he could show me some place that night. When we arrived, this extremely helpful guy walked with me into the metro and even to the door of my hostel and even up the 5 stairs into the hostel. When I arrived I found myself in a nice big room with just one other bed, having a Italian man, named Emanuelle on it. He lived in istanbul, was born in Rome, and was here inyekaterinburg for a rportage. He was a professional photographer. Wel, lucker I couldn't be with my plans to buy that camera. Indeed a while later the seller came and emanuelle helped me with some things I had to check with buying the camera. Everything OK and for 9000 rubles, 120 euro's I bought the camera. It bcame clear that the newprice on the internet was 500 euro's so I was pretty happy.
That night I went out with Ivan (the guy i discribed) and his friends at the cheap killfish bar where i had been too with dennis and his friends from kazan. Great people, they were not all very good at english, but there was a very nice easy atmosphere. One friend of Ivan, Stas, was the tolk for the night, but I talked with some friends of him and there was not such a big language border.
Because Ivan (and me too) was tired we went home early, but still I enjoyed that night.
The next day I walked thrue the city, making the first photo's with my new camera, and I talked with Isa by Sms (isa from the north of siberia) I actually wanted to go to his home, but unfortunately found out that it was just to far thinking about the time I had left. I really will go to him and learn shooting the next time I am in Russia. Around 6.30 pm I ent to the top of the biggest sky scraper of Yekaterinburg, because Emanualle had told me around that time there was the best light of the day for photo's. On top I met a girl, because she wanted me to take a photo of her with the view at the background, and she was form Novosibirsk, the city I would go to next. She was very friendly and we shared phone numbers so she could show me around in that city.
The next day was awful. I went to the station to buy tickets for the next train, and had to wait a very long time in the que. First there was a gue but no lady behind the desk so nothing happened, 20 minutes later she came and at first there were two chinese girls doying all sort of writing and calculating and probably translating stuf, takingabout a hour of time just for themselves. Some people from the queue became very angry about this but the lady at the desk just gave them the time they needed. When the chinese girls were done (and i was already pissed too) there was just one man being helped and then the desk lady had a break. Yeah fuck. another 30 minutes waiting. So I went to another que and got helped in 20 minutes by another desk lady. Then I had not much time left to go to the hostel, have lunch (at 5 pm) and shop food for on the train. I had just 40 minutes left when I walked on the streets again everything packed in a hurry, but with my dreaming stupidness and stubburnness (if that is a word) I still went to a restaurant to have lunch. Ofcourse it took time for them to made the dish and for me to eat it, and when I was in de metro to the trainstation, my train departed. I was really really pissed and down because I had to pay 4000 rubles for this train, the most expensive one until now, and it was the Rossiya train, train no. 1. The very first and only actually "real" transsiberia train, which departes once a week. So I buyed another ticket, got myself food for the trip in the market and went back to the hostel to have a bit sleep. The next morning I went more relaxed to the train, having 150 at the station to find the train. But there I couldn't find platform 1 and apearantly nobody could speak english, so I was send upstairs, then back downstairs, then upstairs again, and then, when I only had 5 minutes left, I was in real stress and I think a bit hysterical I tried to make clear to a man who wanted to help me that I only had 5 minutes left and had to go there NOW. The man told me to go to the information desks downstairs... that would never help me in this amount of time but he just didn't understand that. Then two boys came to us, asked the man what was going on and I told them i only had 5 minutes. They wanted me to follow them, and that was the last thing I could do so I did it. We walked really fast dowstairs, then true a door of empoyee crew, through a narrow corridor, another door, saw some workers and cleaners, and then we were all of a sudden at platform one. Spasiba i sayd quickly to them and runned to the women of the train in frontt of me, who was already closing the doors. inside the train i had to walk to the right wagon.