Crazy Travels

Yesterday, (Wednesday), I was to return to Tver after the pastor’s conference to resume my language studies. I had been told that I would be leaving at 4 p.m. to catch a 6 o’clock train that would get me to Tver around 9 or 10. I was also told that I would be going with Pastor Sasha Schmidt, who had agreed to take me in his van, as he was going into St. Petersburg anyways. Well, as we got ready to go at 4:20, already running a bit late, we tried starting his diesel van, but it simply wouldn’t start. So, we had to go to plan B.

What was plan B? Walking into the village of Koltice to catch a marshrootka. A marshrootka (for those of you who don’t know—and I am guessing that this is pretty much everyone) is a van that runs on the bus lines, but more frequently. Plus, they are willing to stop wherever you want them to (unlike a bus) and they are much, much cheaper than a taxi. So, here we were, walking at the speed of a slow jog on the side of a rather busy snowy and icy road trying to flag down any car. This is another difference in Russia. Anyone with a car is a potential taxi, and this form of paid hitch-hiking is quite common here. But, no one stopped for us, so we carried on to the bus stop.

Right as we got to the bus stop, we spotted a marshrootka which was ending up at a metro station, which was excellent for 2 reasons: first, we didn’t have to wait at all, and second, we could take the metro to the train station. So, we piled on, paid our 90 cent fares (which beats the $30 fare we could easily have had via taxi), and were on our way—this was approximately 4:50. After 20 minutes in the marshrootka, we entered the metro station. On our arrival to St. Petersburg, we took the metro, and I thought to myself, “Why don’t I just buy a few extra tokens?” So I did. Well, that paid great dividends last night, as it was rush hour when we entered the metro. As I glanced at the line of 15 or so people waiting to buy tokens, I was so glad that I had bought them. SO, we ran through the station to get to the train, which we did about 5:15-ish. Things were looking good, as we had been blessed to not have to wait anywhere.

We got to the train station around 5:30, and went to find our about our train. We looked at the schedule and discovered that the train we wanted didn’t leave until 6:28. “All that for nothing!” I thought. I turned out to be more correct than I knew. After waiting in the line to buy same day tickets, we finally got to the window and told the lady that we wanted a ticket on this fast train, whose ultimate destination was Moscow. Unfortunately, that train was nonstop! So, we had really killed ourselves for no reason, for the train that I ended up taking didn’t leave until 7:46. However, this did afford me two things: the chance for some dinner and a nice conversation with Pastor Sasha, who speaks English quite well. Well, all told, instead of reaching Tver at 9 or 10, I got home at 1:30! Thankfully, I had enough foresight to call the language school and push my class back an hour so that it didn’t start until 9:30. So, it was nice to get a little extra sleep—although my teacher, I am sure, noticed me yawning throughout the lessons all day!