Odyssey

The trains are now accelerating to about 500 km/h in China. France has its TGV and Italians are eating pasta while on the Pendolino travelling very fast. In Central and Eastern Europe trains are still slower than marathon runners on steroids.

I’m from Cracow, a city situated in the South of Poland. I was once going to eastern Ukraine Lviv. The distance between these two cities is like 160 thousand NBA players lying behind one another. Our Polish TGV, called TLK, is not used for simple straight routes. The track of the map, looks like the ECG of Sylvio Berlusconi during the “bunga-bunga”.

It’s not easy to get to the train station in Cracow.The city is pro-ecological, it fights with fast food restaurants, so trams are so slow that you have to go everywhere on foot. On the train there are lot of people from different countries. Belarusians going to visit their friends, my compatriots who want to visit places related to the Polish, finally Ukrainians returning home from universities or workplaces. Everyone is surprised by the fact that the border mechanics are changing train chassis because of different railway tracks. Our surprise is similar to when the Mexicans first saw people in India with red dots on their foreheads.

To start, you have to get a ticket from a lady in a window that will sell it to you momentarily. But first she’ll have to finish her coffee, pie and phone calls and because of this, the queue is longer than the Long Bridge in NY. People are getting angry and starting to shout out to government. In Eastern Europe, every time when something is not going according to plan, you have to say something bad about government(recent or future). After 30 minutes you can finally get your piece of paper. Now you have just to find your platform. The voice from speakers should help you. But only if a man from information will stop speaking a language which sounds like mix of Hungarian and Chinese.

Swordfish can achieve the speed of 100 km/h. Golden eagles can fly two times as fast. But my train, steam locomotive after update, can only reach the same speed as a Redskins Ostrich (50 km/h). In about ten hours I will be in Lviv. Earlier I had to go to the toilet, it stunk like the Ganges. Inside you have two buttons. S.O.S., if the train shakes too strong. The second button cancels out the first button as you realize that toilet in train is only for smoking cigarettes.

During the journey you can’t sleep. Every fifteen minutes in, the driver reminds you where you are and that this is not your destination. He wishes you a successful, not enjoyable trip. Although, the most important thing is to reach your destination.