Jumped on the train at 8:30, after getting woken up by the very nice lady in my hostel, what a star, she gave me a hug and a kiss goodbye, very sweet of her! This is when the nightmare began, as i had no money left to buy any food, i had limited water and i had a stinging hangover and a supposed 20 hour journey ahead of me... lucky that i had had such a succulent chicken sandwhich the night before!
Slipped onto train and slept for the first 5 hours... disturbed only once this time to check tickets!
Just after awaking a guy barges into my carriage which i am sharing with a finnish couple and they start stashing hundreds of cigs behind seats, i presumed it was just an oportunist guy trying to make a quick buck, i soon found out it was a little bit of a bigger job!!
In the afternoon i tried my new technique for learning italian, which is by translating the Gazzetta Dello Sport, reading about sport and learning at the same time... genius!! Wasn't that successful as had a stinging hangover still!
Arrived onto the Bulgarian Border at about 6pm, the train must have been stuck there for about 3 hours while they checked passports etc... i can't believe they didn't find any of the cigs, there must have been thousands and thousands of them and once we did actually set off the commotion of selling cigs was so crazy, i've never seen anything like it! Arrived in Sofia at 10 but jumped straight on the next train to Istanbul... this is when the journey got even more fun!!!
First of all jumped into a random carriage which i shared with a random turkish couple, had no idea what they were on about but they were crazy!
I fell alseep until i was booted out of the carriage at a random bulgarian station saying that the carriage was closing... i was dumped in the sleeping carriages informed that it would coast me 8 euros to stay in them! was well pleased as i had no money but i think he said i could pay on departure... well he dumped me in a compartment anyway!
The turkish border was quite fun also, we all had to get off the train to get our passports checked, this is when i was informed as a brit i would have to pay 10 euro's for a visa to get in the country... oh joy! Could i pay by credit card... NOOOOO!!! Stuck on the Turkish border with no cash machine, luckily a french guy bailed me out... but i was suddenly getting a shit load of folk on my back asking for cash!
Once in Turkey everything started sorting it's self out apart from the train conductor confiscating my inter=rail ticket, he caught me well off guard, from then on, i kept on falling asleep and having dreams that i'd got it back then horrified when i woke to find out he still had it!
I had it out with the conductor trying to get it back but he was having none of it until we got to Istanbul!! GAY!!
We arrived at about 10:30 am after 27 hours and i had creditors coming out of my ears, luckily it sorted itself out, i shouldn't have been worried about it looking back but what can you do!!!
30 hours of energy on a greasy chicken burger... god know's how that piece of shit kept me going!!
|  | 
|
