Warsaw to Kiev (1)
This was where I felt that the trip, the adventure, really started. It was here that I felt that I was somewhere new. Uncharted.
So, I had made the decision to ignore the 'delights' (now only imagined) of the 'central' Warsaw station for what I expected was to Central what say Paddington was to Kings Cross. Oh dear. Wschodnia was a bad news place. I was indeed excited at being in Poland, In Warsaw.
My notes:
"Wschodnia is a grim station. Lots of stall-like shops selling snacks, drinks, books, porn, slippers. There was a cash machine that wouldn't take any of my cards so I had no money. Nobody wanted to take Euros. I have NO IDEA why I didn't try and use dollars. I'm not so stupid that I never carry dollars! The station isn't 'international'. And I bet that my sleeper started at Central - it can't possibly start from here. I had a two hour wait in an unheated station at 19.30 with no money and I was starving, and quite fancied a drink. I had to eat one of my two emergency mars bars. Station was so scary, and I was tapped-up so many times for cash, that I didn't get my camera out. I should have. Only record of it are some phone-cam pics."
Platforms are reached via a long tunnel perpendicular to the platforms, just like at Cardiff Central, only with knicker and bra stalls lining it, and dodgy DVD stalls, and of course badly lit.
Hmm. Why didn't I try and use dollars? There was a post office and I tried to change money and with a bit of language jocularity I worked out that the Change place closed 20 minutes ago. They were very smiley ladies though.
Ironically, while I was on the platform, the Warsaw to Moscow sleeper came in, the one that goes via Belarus that I would have been on had I not wanted to go to the Ukraine (JOOI, is is 'the' Ukraine? Or is it just 'Ukraine'?).
JOOI, it was on this part of the trip that I decided, as I always do, that the camera memory / storage that I have brought with me isn't going to be enough (I carry two 2GB cards that are each good for 165 RAW + JPEG images at ISO 100). I really need at least four times this amount at the very least (knowing that increasing ISO to 400 etc cuts down the number of shots even more). Really I need two 8GB cards. Anyway, in the absence of this, I switched to 'large JPEG only'. Only I forgot until the next morning that unless I did something about it, I would be in B&W the rest of the trip. Which is all you're seeing anyway.
This is what the station looked like... Note that the first pic is of the departure board. My friend, the departure board. My train is the penultimate one on the left-hand side even though it doesn't mention Warsaw or Kiev. The 'destination' is the town on the border where the Polish part of the train splits off. More on that later - I got to see that bit of the train at close quarters.
This station was unheated.
So, I had made the decision to ignore the 'delights' (now only imagined) of the 'central' Warsaw station for what I expected was to Central what say Paddington was to Kings Cross. Oh dear. Wschodnia was a bad news place. I was indeed excited at being in Poland, In Warsaw.
My notes:
"Wschodnia is a grim station. Lots of stall-like shops selling snacks, drinks, books, porn, slippers. There was a cash machine that wouldn't take any of my cards so I had no money. Nobody wanted to take Euros. I have NO IDEA why I didn't try and use dollars. I'm not so stupid that I never carry dollars! The station isn't 'international'. And I bet that my sleeper started at Central - it can't possibly start from here. I had a two hour wait in an unheated station at 19.30 with no money and I was starving, and quite fancied a drink. I had to eat one of my two emergency mars bars. Station was so scary, and I was tapped-up so many times for cash, that I didn't get my camera out. I should have. Only record of it are some phone-cam pics."
Platforms are reached via a long tunnel perpendicular to the platforms, just like at Cardiff Central, only with knicker and bra stalls lining it, and dodgy DVD stalls, and of course badly lit.
Hmm. Why didn't I try and use dollars? There was a post office and I tried to change money and with a bit of language jocularity I worked out that the Change place closed 20 minutes ago. They were very smiley ladies though.
Ironically, while I was on the platform, the Warsaw to Moscow sleeper came in, the one that goes via Belarus that I would have been on had I not wanted to go to the Ukraine (JOOI, is is 'the' Ukraine? Or is it just 'Ukraine'?).
JOOI, it was on this part of the trip that I decided, as I always do, that the camera memory / storage that I have brought with me isn't going to be enough (I carry two 2GB cards that are each good for 165 RAW + JPEG images at ISO 100). I really need at least four times this amount at the very least (knowing that increasing ISO to 400 etc cuts down the number of shots even more). Really I need two 8GB cards. Anyway, in the absence of this, I switched to 'large JPEG only'. Only I forgot until the next morning that unless I did something about it, I would be in B&W the rest of the trip. Which is all you're seeing anyway.
This is what the station looked like... Note that the first pic is of the departure board. My friend, the departure board. My train is the penultimate one on the left-hand side even though it doesn't mention Warsaw or Kiev. The 'destination' is the town on the border where the Polish part of the train splits off. More on that later - I got to see that bit of the train at close quarters.
This station was unheated.
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