Since every day I go to a few churches ( or temples, and even a mosque, depending on where I am) while taking in the sights, I don't try to keep track of when Sunday is. I am in church(es) a lot. It mattered little what day it was out in yert land. On the train every day is the same.
Once I went to a museum, but it was closed that day of the week. Other than that, it really has not mattered what day of the week it was.
I do have to worry about the Korean ferry. It is only once a week, on Wednesdays.
But, really, what time is it?
To start with. All scheduled times on the train are Moscow times. And so things are five or six or seven hours off, depending on where you are. And since everything out the train windows looks the same, it is hard to tell where one is. Besides, scenery does not tell you what time zone you are in.
You have to figure where you are by the name of the cities on the occasional stops. But even here, it is tricky. They write
(Ouch---dang that hurts.
Sorry, for the interruption, but that really hurt.
As I type this, I am sitting in the aisle on a jump seat and everybody is happily squeezing by. I can't sit in my compartment because the two lazy asses who have the bottom seats--that are supposed to be seats by day and beds only at night--have been stretched out for something like 29 hours, leaving me no place to sit besides in the upper bunk. I swear the guy must have slept at least twenty four of those hours. (And now, as I am getting ready to send this up, he is up to about 40 of the 46 hours. And he is asleep still!!! How does he do it?!?)
Okay so I'm sitting out here and people have been happily squeezing by. But then this big fat woman comes by, and squashes my shoulders between the wall and her massive belly. And it was not squishy fat. It was hard, with no give. This pain in my neck/shoulder is always there. But when it gets whacked like that----ouch. It is like somebody stepping on your toe, hard, while hitting your funny bone. Pain, pins and needles and all that. Hard bellied blimpo making my shoulder hurt worse.
Anyway--back to the thing about losing track of time. )
I was saying it was tricky to tell where you are because the name of the town is written in some kind of code. I don't know what they are trying to hide, since all the Russians seem to know the code. There are backward K's and R's and upside down N's, and mathematical symbols like Pi and Delta. And what's with putting a 3 in the middle of a word? They have an X with a vertical line in the middle. Even the letters that look real don't say what they are supposed to. For instance, if you see the letter B, you are supposed to say V. Vowels don't say their names, like they do in American. Real pain in the butt trying to read anything. So, you can't just look out and see where you are. You have to decode stuff.
And don't tell me to go by the sun. They put too many clouds up there to get that to work. And besides, I'm not sure the sun knows what it is supposed to be doing.
Last night when my watch said 11:30 pm local time, I looked out the window and the sky was still light. How does that work?
It looks like the train system is also messed up. One attachment I got from Russian rail confirming this trip says I get there at 18:45 August 5. This means 1:45 am August 6. (See, I told you it was screwy!) The other says 18:45 August 6 which means early morning August 7. Go figure.
I mean, if the train does not know the day, how am I supposed to keep of when now is?
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