Ya ustala! (sorry no cyrillic)

Last night (friday) we left Berlin after a very exhausting trek around the Hauptbahnhof looking for a cash machine. I almost very nearly lost the plot. I searched the entire 4 floors of that station to get some cash but alas klar. Das ist sehr sub optimal. I wanted cash to buy food for the 2 day train journey I was shortly to undertake (no restaurant car) so I ended up paying by card at a supermarket but as I was so flustered I ended up leaving the cheese and sausage at the checkout after I had paid for them, and only realised when I got on the train I had no food! Shite. This has turned out to be a massive weight loss programme based solely on drinking tea and instant noodles...

I am sharing a carriage with a German speaking Russian lady called Tatianna. It started out ok with us mixing the German and Russian and me trying to understand what the feck she's  talking about.... she's one of these types who will randomly shout out something with an expectant look on her face, and I just smile and say "da!". So I've had to quickly learn "I don't understand" in Russian (ya nhe panimaru or ya nhe gavarru paruski). The problem is this doesn't stop her and she keeps talking at me, and I'm so tired now I can't tell whether she is speaking Russian or German anymore. God help me! She has been useful though because the man on the train (conductor?) speaks to her and tells her things and she then tells me. FUnny, I got on the train a stop before Tatianna and the man said nothing to me, when she got on and started speaking Russian he brought us sheets and told us where the loo was.. i thought that somewhat rude but I imagine it'll get worse. What can you do? It's very hot on the train even though there is air conditioning.... Ian is struggling with the heat and spends most of his time sleeping.

Last night we went across the border between Poland and Belarus, which was painless really. The efforts getting the visa in London seems to have paid off, and i didn't get dragged off the train in my pjamas. Saying "I don't understand" and angliski to the customs lady seems to have paid off too, and she focussed mainly on Tatianna who took great pleasure telling me afterwards that the reason the woman was mean to her was because Belarussian's don't like Russian's because of the gas....

So we're currently sat on the tracks next to a station somewhere in Belarus, I could write it in Cyrillic but in english forget it. Everyone has just left the train pretty much, but even with all my effort I couldn't understand what the Russian train lady was saying...... I know we'll be here for "zwei stunden" but i don't understand what stunden is... hours? 2 hours? 2 days? As predicted I don't know what time it is either, even though I have a watch. I basically existing in a timeless zone, where I can't really do anything through fear of being left behind. I want to get to Russia proper so I know that people are definitely speaking Russian and not a weird German-Belarussian-Russian nonesense.

I did leave the train briefly but kept it clearly in my sights - I assume this will happen a lot throughout my train travels so feel I have more than enough opportunities ahead to experience this.

I am so sweaty!