Slept right through last night (the copious amounts of alcohol probably helped). Probably won’t sleep much tonight though as we don’t plan on drinking as we arrive at Irkutsk at about 4.30am tomorrow so don’t want to be feeling fragile. Denis and John are meeting their family at the station too so have already told us they don’t plan to drink. They are trainee fighter pilots so have been away from their family for quite a long time.
John came down at 3pm and invited us for beers with them to celebrate Christmas day. When I questioned the not drinking situation he said they just meant no Vodka lol. We asked if we could invite the two English guys we’d met and they were more than happy for them to join us. Haiden and Tracey joined us and awe also invited Jason, an Australian guy who they had chatted to onboard.
We ate and drank for quite a while and tried some dried squid that John had bought at the last platform stop. The miserable woman got off today too which lightened the mood a lot. Haiden and Tracey said that our carriage had a completely different feeling to theirs as nobody mingled or even had their coupe doors open most of the time.
Me and Phil walked all the way to the end of the train just to see all the different classes of carriage. 1st class didn’t really look much different apart from having all wooden trim everywhere. 3 class was just rows of bunks on both sides and no privacy at all. I don’t think I would have found it easy to sleep in those carriages. They were all packed full too.
Took quite a few pictures of the various view whilst we have been on the train, but they don't look so impressive on a photo.
