With our time in Russia slowly dwindling away, I have certain goals to achieve. Among these goals was getting to all three Baltic capitals. Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, I'd been to previously, very briefly, and visited twice more during the last year. Riga, the capital of Latvia, was checked off my list over a year ago, leaving Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Vilnius decided, apparently, that it didn't want to be part of my little game. Vilnius thought it would be funny to slap me around to test my resolve.
Our best opportunity to see Vilnius seemed to lie with Jonathan's job- he had some business to take care of there. We scheduled a trip for December, but Jonathan's run-in with pneumonia meant the trip had to be postponed. After the holidays, it was rescheduled for early February. A few days before our trip, headquarters caught wind of this and started spazzing about the budget. They didn't realize it had been rescheduled, they thought it had been cancelled, funding has changed in the new year, etc etc. Never mind that we personally paid for the tickets and hotel in advance and were supposed to get refunded. So at this point, being out the money, we were going whether they liked it or not, but we sure hoped they'd like it and pay us back. After some back-and-forth they finally admitted they couldn't worm their way out of refunding us. Yay!
Our train was scheduled to leave the night of Saturday the 2nd. Saturday afternoon we busily packed. I pored over my shiny new digital SLR's users manual and took some test shots, drooling over all the pictures I'd be taking. Here's one of the train station in St. Petersburg, as we arrived to catch our train.
Our train was scheduled to leave at about 7 PM and arrive the next day around noon. That's a long train ride. Unsure if we would get fed on the train, we made a quick McDonald's run, as well as buying some bags of chips and 8 liters of bottled water. (It gets incredibly dry on the trains. I don't know how Russians do it on a diet of pickled mushrooms and vodka without their throats cracking in half overnight.) Thus loaded down we entered the station.
Here's the inside of the station...
a magazine stand...
a snack kiosk...
the busy platform...
this is how you know where you've arrived...
And last but not least, here's Jonathan on the platform, just before we prepared to board.
As I took that last one, the ticket-taker for our car watched and smiled. We then handed her our tickets and passports. "Oh!" she said. "Americans!" More smiles. Then, a cloud of confusion mingled with surprise crossed her face. "You were able to get a Belarusian visa?"
Jonathan blinked. "Wait. Isn't this the train to Lithuania?"
"Yes..." she said.
"Through Latvia?"
"Um, no..." Then, after flipping through our passports, "Hm. Wait here." And she disappeared.
"Oh my god," said Jonathan, as soon as she was out of earshot. "We're going back home tonight. We have to drag all this stuff back home."
Since his conversation with her had all been in Russian, I was completely baffled. "What? Go home? Why?"
Jonathan gave me the quick run-down. There are two trains to Vilnius. One goes through Latvia, one goes through Belarus. The problem is, even to traverse across one edge of Belarus on a train, you need a visa from the Belarusian government. And since, unfortunately, Belarus really hates America, there's no way we (or practically any other American) would get a visa. So when he went to the travel agency to buy tickets, Jonathan specifically requested a train going through Latvia. Specifically, like, verified it 8 times with the sales lady... who apparently chose to ignore him.
Our ticket lady at the train station returned. She looked sad. "Yes, this train goes through Belarus. You need a Belarusian visa to get on this train."
"I know... that's why I asked for a train going through Latvia. I was sold the wrong ticket."
"Yes! You could take a train through Latvia!"
"I know. We were told this was the Latvian train when we bought the ticket."
"No... this is the Belarusian train. You can't board this train without a Belarusian visa. You should have asked for a ticket for the Latvian train."
"I KNOW. I DID."
"Because you can't go on this train."
This went on for some time. All very politely; the lady actually felt pretty bad for us. But there was no changing the fact that we weren't going anywhere tonight but back home. At least she noticed the error before we were at the Belarusian border... THAT would have been a nightmare.
So, we sadly gathered our suitcases and luke-warm McDs and our giant bottles of water and made our way back to the ticket booth to see what could be done. Turns out there was a Latvian train the next night. After some debate about whether or not it was worth it, we decided to exchange our tickets, a process which cost an extra $100 and apparently requires a LOT of paperwork because it took nearly an hour. At least during the wait we were entertained by a large family of toothless, giant-fur-hat and elf-toed-shoe wearing, shouting-at-the-top-of-their-lungs Chechens, so ridiculous that not even Borat could parody them. Sweet.
Here's the line forming behind Jonathan at the ticket booth. I didn't get any pictures of the Chechens. I was kind of afraid of them.
New tickets in hand, we took all our stuff and headed home. The trip home even included me getting yelled at for trying to take my giant suitcase through the turnstyle with only one subway token. Apparently for large suitcases you're supposed to buy two tokens... not that anyone ever told me that the other 15 times I've taken my suitcase through. I blame Vilnius. Once home we microwaved our McDs and zoned out with some beer and Airwolf.
After a good night's sleep we were set to try once more. With one less day to worry about, and after getting yelled at about my suitcase, we repacked into smaller bags. Jonathan also decided to go to the gym. I opted to sit on my rear. I heard him milling about upstairs, starting to come down, forgetting something and jogging back up, which was suddenly interrupted by a WHUMP and muffled screaming. He'd gotten his shoe caught on the steps and fallen. These aren't cushy carpeted steps either, they're awkward, twisty, rock-hard steps made from marble or something. I leapt off the couch and went running up and there he was, sprawled across them like a train wreck. "Oh my god, what happened???"
"Mffmfphhhmmmmmmn!!" he said.
"What? Why aren't you opening your mouth?? Oh my god did you BREAK YOUR TEETH??!? DO YOU HAVE A MOUTH FULL OF TEETH???!"
"Mmffffpphhm! Mf mf! MF MF!"
Finally I realized he had a mouth full of mouthwash. No broken teeth. I looked around, and no blood either. He was, however, gripping his bad knee. Crap.
Eventually he was able to stand and wobbled his way to the sink. "Holy crap my knee," he said, once mouthwash-free. He'd basically taken the force of the fall all with one kneecap across the edge of a step. He had a deeply bruised line across his knee, but at least he could still bend it. It was, however, swelling before our very eyes.
"So can you not walk? Should we stay home? Our train leaves in 2 hours, what should we do?"
"Let's wait and see. Bring me some ice."
After some icing, elevation, and Motrin, he decided he'd live, and that if he propped it up on the train it would be okay.
So we gathered up our belongings yet again, limped our way to the train station, bought some more McDs, and, after comfirming it was the correct train, hooray!, were allowed to board.
The train was pretty nice, and overall the ride was uneventful, aside from the ridiculous discovery, after we'd eaten our cheeseburgers, that we would be served dinner after all. Whoops. Also, it crosses the border to Latvia at about 1:30 AM, so everyone gets woken up while first Russian customs comes through, then the train moves a mile, then Latvian customs makes its rounds.
Here's Jonathan in our cabin...
another cabin shot. Nice TV, too bad it only seemed to play a Russian version of American Idol.
Here's our second dinner. Chicken loaf (stuffed with prunes and almonds), rice, peas, olives, pickle slices and dark bread. Mmm!
And, the next morning, our breakfast. Good thing we had two dinners the night before, because this is a seriously tiny breakfast. That spreadable cheese was REALLY good, though.
As we ate breakfast we watched the sun rise over Lithuania. The good news about the Latvia route was that it was faster than the Belarus route. We pulled into Vilnius at around 8:00, just when the sun peeked over the horizon.
Lithuanian countryside...
the train station in Vilnius.
So, take THAT Vilnius, we made it here after all!! Unfortunately our stay wouldn't exactly be stellar either... stay tuned.
