True to his word John knocked on in the morning, beer in hand, but we explained it was too early for us and we would go down to their coupe after lunch. We went down to see them at about 2.00pm with my bottle of Vodka and Phil's beers. They put on a little spread of food (sliced cucumber, tomatoes, bread and Salami) and we drank our vodka and beer and also a bottle of vodka they had.
At about 9pm (not late by anyone’s standards) the older stewardess came and told us to go back to our coupe as the miserable Russian woman next door was complaining about the noise. When we disputed going to bed so early she told us just to stay in the coupe for 10 minutes till the Russian woman went into her coupe and then we could go back.
At midnight we did the whole Merry Christmas thing (but quietly lol). John and Denis made us feel very welcome in their coupe and wouldn’t let us have an empty glass for one second.
John’s dog Aisha seems to have took a shine to me, she’s a small French bulldog. At first we thought it was a bit odd taking a dog on such a long train journey but she’s really well behaved. They actually had to buy a ticket for her the same as any other passenger. John bought some smoked whole fish at one of the stations and shared it with us. It was really nice and went well with the beer so we will probably buy some tomorrow at the next platform stop.
I gave John my old pair of trainers as I was going to ditch them in Beijing anyway and buy some there. Me and Denis swapped T-shirts as a souvenir of our trip. Got to bed at about 3am.
I went down to see the two stewardesses after midnight and gave them a vodka each. They were both laughing about the Russian lady. They are both quite nice when they warm up a bit, they just seemed frosty when we first got on. I went down again later and they were drinking champagne with Denis so offered me a glass. I think Denis was trying to hit on the young one, Helena as he came down the train later asking for a condom lol.
