Warsaw-London: Approx. 1075 miles
Total distance traveled since Vladivostok: Approx. 9455 miles
At the end of our tour we were back at the Central Train Station and spent our last hour or so in Warsaw spending our remaining zlotys (with fresh memories of excess Ukrainian hryvinas on our mind) so we were able to procure dinner, breakfast, and lunch for the next day (which was good, since we wouldn’t arrive in London until roughly noon the following day).
For the first time on the trip, our train was not the Soviet-style sleeper cars anymore. Instead, it was a Western style non-sleeper train that departed Warsaw around 6:30 PM. Some random last miscellaneous thoughts about Poland: outside of train stations, there really isn’t any signage in English (surprising, since Ukraine actually has quite a lot). Polish has a number of words in common with Russian (ulitsa for street, shest for six, etc.) though it’s a very difficult language to learn and pronounce correctly (Greg said he once got into an argument while traveling in China over which language was more difficult – the results were inconclusive). And it must be tough being a country surrounded by more powerful rivals (kind of like Korea being stuck between China and Japan, or Israel for that matter). Honestly speaking, having grown up and lived in the United States it’s hard to really understand what that is like – the only foreign power to seize US soil since 1812 was the Japanese (who took over two Aleutian islands and were evicted about a year later) and as great a threat as Al Qaeda is, in truth the greatest threat to the US in the foreseeable future is our ballooning debt.
Sunset over Poland.
Anyways, we arrived in Berlin sometime around midnight and had about an hour layover there. Although we would have liked to spend more time sightseeing in Germany, we were on a tight timeline and I’d personally spent a few weeks in Germany in the past, and my Dad lived there for several years, so we mostly tried to catch up on sleep. In the morning, we arrived at our destination (Köln, aka Cologne) where we had to switch trains to the German ICE which would take us to Brussels.
Now in the past I’d mentioned the various reception and service in trying to get tickets, namely at Kiev and Warsaw. I have to say that our experience in Köln was typically German. We followed the signs to the Deutsche Bahn travel center (Deutsche Bahn is the German train company, which translates to “German Railway”). We entered a separate room away from the noise and busyness of the tracks, pressed a button and received a number. Soon enough, our number came up on the screen telling us which counter to go to where a Deutsche Bahn employee, complete with vest and tie, greeted us and asked what he could to help. I said that we were looking to catch the next train to Brussels. “Today?” “Ja.” “Hmm…” (apparently we were being quite unordnung in not reserving this further in advance) He punches some keys on the computer, looks at the screen, and remarks, “Ah yes, there’s a train leaving for Brussels in twenty minutes…” – he shows us the price, we agree, and before long he hands us the envelope with tickets in it, gives us directions to get to the proper platform, and wishes us a good day. Definitely the most orderly, professional, and efficient ticketing counter I’d seen on the entire trip, and typically German.
So before we knew it, off we went to Brussels in Belgium, topping out at about 150mph on the trip. Once in Brussels, we got tickets for the Eurostar which would take us under the English Channel and into London. We had to get our passports stamped for the first time since crossing into Poland (which is definitely convenient compared to what my Dad experienced the last time he was in Europe, though it doesn’t look quite as impressive on the passport) and enjoyed the relatively short two-hour trip (the Eurostar tops out around 180mph). Welcome to England!
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