Glad to hear you made it back home. Regarding your train travel, I have to reproach your friend who apparently didn't tell you much at all about the "train culture". As you know I travel a lot by trains but mostly used coupe (that's originally a French word) and platzkart (German word, Platzkarte). Guess what, when I was younger and poorer I used platzkart, and now I am mostly traveling in coupe. Sometimes it may be a lot of fun indeed, you never know. E.g. when you go to Kazan in November you may find lots of informally looking people with guitars some of whom will actually sing right in the train; in summer you will find people with backpacks going to travel to remote areas, etc. So one thing is, in the night train it is better to sleep. I can do it. Some of my friends can't, and they always said they hated trains. When you can, this negative factor vanishes completely. You are actually saving time and resting in the train. Coupe is more comfortable for this, platzkart can be more noisy. When you can't, you'd better take a well charged device to watch movies. :) The other thing is, you can't starve in a train! :) Even if there is no dining car (I can't tell because I very seldom use them), all train attendants have snacks and sell them with tea; actually, you can simply survive just on this. An old habit is to take snacks or meal with you on train. I don't take meals, but I do take sandwiches and cookies. :) Basically, train culture is so embedded that I can't believe you were not told that and boarded a train without any clue what will happen. :)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2015-03-11 08:06 pm (UTC)Regarding your train travel, I have to reproach your friend who apparently didn't tell you much at all about the "train culture". As you know I travel a lot by trains but mostly used coupe (that's originally a French word) and platzkart (German word, Platzkarte). Guess what, when I was younger and poorer I used platzkart, and now I am mostly traveling in coupe.
Sometimes it may be a lot of fun indeed, you never know. E.g. when you go to Kazan in November you may find lots of informally looking people with guitars some of whom will actually sing right in the train; in summer you will find people with backpacks going to travel to remote areas, etc.
So one thing is, in the night train it is better to sleep. I can do it. Some of my friends can't, and they always said they hated trains. When you can, this negative factor vanishes completely. You are actually saving time and resting in the train. Coupe is more comfortable for this, platzkart can be more noisy. When you can't, you'd better take a well charged device to watch movies. :)
The other thing is, you can't starve in a train! :) Even if there is no dining car (I can't tell because I very seldom use them), all train attendants have snacks and sell them with tea; actually, you can simply survive just on this.
An old habit is to take snacks or meal with you on train. I don't take meals, but I do take sandwiches and cookies. :)
Basically, train culture is so embedded that I can't believe you were not told that and boarded a train without any clue what will happen. :)