First Entry

15th August 2008 - 12.53
Writing location: Somewhere between Warsaw and Belarus

I'll skip out all the bits about how saying goodbye to my family at London St. Pancras wasn't an easy thing to do and how the past few days have been full of thoughts about how the move could have been planned a bit better. Yeah. I won't mention that.

It's been a whirlwind few days as we have made our way across Europe, from London to Warsaw and now we're on to Moscow already!

First stop was Brussels: a friendly, though smelly town. At least the part where Brussels-Midi station is found is not that nice! Fortunately there was a fun fair on, so the district was lit up nicely and had plenty of fun and joy on display! After a good few miles traipsing round town, we decided on a Leffe and a Maes in (or outside, rather!) a bar opposite this curious, recent-looking castle. We then headed to the station to check that our luggage was actually stowed for the 24 hours we had dealt at, then tucked in for an omellette and pasta over the square from the station. The food was pretty good and the service wasn't bad. Oh, and 31euros for a meal for two, including drinks and service, right opposite an international rail station seems pretty reasonable for 2008!

We hung out at the station, making full use of the Haegan Daaz provided sofas, until several hefty men just came along and closed them down for the night by simply chucking them back into the shop! After that, we moved up to the platform and waited with the multinational congregation of passengers. The train arrived right on time (the delayed time!) and we scrambled aboard. Our boarding wasn't helped by the unorthodox method of ordering the coaches - a system that sent two older ladies, whom we had overhead praising the Eurostar for all manner of things, into quite a spin. A few shouts of words like 'Ridiculous' and 'Absolutely' in various orders followed. This was the only part of the trip where we didn't have double occupancy and this midnight madness was rounded off with our discovery of what, exactly, 'couchette' means...