One
common theme on the Race, is crazy travel days. You would think getting from
point A to point B wouldn’t be very difficult, but it never fails that
something always happens. In Africa you might wake up while on a night bus and
find some chickens or prisoners sitting next to you. Random women might be
found sitting on your lap or random children might be placed onto your lap. You
might even get stuck because of a broken bridge. You just never really know
what to expect when starting a travel day.
To
go from Split, Croatia to Kiev, Ukraine was our longest travel time of the
year. We were leaving Split at 7:55am on Friday, and not arriving in Kiev until
8:00pm on Sunday. Our schedule was
6 hours from Split to Zagreb, 6 hours from Zagreb to Budapest, 26 hours from
Budapest to Kiev. Friday was also out International Night of Prayer, so we were
fasting during the day, and taking shifts to stay up that night praying.
We
started our journey on a fast train from Split to Zagreb, Croatia. 6 hours down
and nothing to exciting happened. Just a smooth ride where most of us either
slept or watched a movie.
2 hour layover in Zagreb. Check.
6
hour train from Zagreb to Budapest, Hungary. Nothing too exciting again, other
than we had to change train cars 2 different times, once because the one we
were in was going to Vienna instead of Budapest and the 2nd because
apparently we were in first class instead of 2nd.
We arrived in Budapest around
10:30pm, and our next train wasn’t until the following day at 6pm, but we
didn’t think we really had it in budget to stay anywhere so we had decided to
just sleep at the train station. We found a corner, put on comfier clothes, and
laid out our sleeping bags in this freezing train station. Right as we were all
getting ready to go to sleep (other than the person whose turn it was to be
praying) one of the workers comes up to the team, can speak know English, but
is clearly telling us that we can’t sleep in the station. At some point someone
realized he was saying the station closed at midnight. So we pack our stuff and
do the logical thing.
Did we start trying to find a hostel or hotel???
No, I said we did the logical thing. We headed for the
subway station.
When
we got to the subway, there were two men peeing on either side of the station
entrance like gargoyles guarding it. So we decided to make the subway station a
last resort and first attempt to find somewhere to sleep.
The
last time we were in Budapest is when I had prayed that God would let us see
Kathryn even if it was just for 2 seconds, and He did. So as we were walking
around I started asking God for a safe place to stay. Then I realized that
every time I have done that this year, God has answered my prayer in exactly
the way I asked it. So I quickly I changed my prayer to please give us a safe,
warm place to stay that has a hot shower.
Guess
what???
He
did it again. We found a hostel that we could afford that had 5 beds left. It
had heat and warm water showers. WOOOHOOOO!!! The guy that owned the hostel
even let us chill out there until 6pm the next day when we had to catch our
train.
Travel
day half way over.
We
jump on the train in Budapest at 6:55pm and start heading to Kiev. The train is
nothing but sleeper cars, so there are no real seats, just beds. An exciting
turn of events, Megan’s team was on the same train with us so we got to hang
out with them the whole way.
The first thing we noticed was the
hallway was extremely narrow. Our packs barely fit through. It was also boiling
hot, so we all congregated near windows. About an hour into the trip, the lady
working in our car went through and closed and locked all the windows. It was
hot, but hey we were in Thailand in their hottest month, so it wasn’t too bad.
We
all started laying down and chilling out around 10pm. I was watching a movie at
11pm when we crossed the border and the border patrol came busting through like
we were under attack to check passports. I handed them mine and Lindsey’s
passports and then went back to my movie. The lady that was working in our car
came through saying something that I didn’t understand, and after playing
charades for awhile I just said Yes, so she moved on. Turns out this was vital
information she was trying to give me.
While
your stopped at the border, they change the wheels on the train. There is a
machine that literally lifts up the train while you are on it, and they change
out the wheels. So while doing this, obviously the train isn’t moving. Come to
find out, while the train isn’t moving, the bathrooms are locked so you can’t
use them. I have 1 bedtime routine, I go to the bathroom right before I go to
bed. Midnight roles around and I’m tired so I get up to go to the bathroom and
find it locked. I ask the lady about it and she starts yelling at me in another
language. Danny apparently was also trying to get her to open the bathroom and
by the end of it, she was making fun of us for asking. We eventually understood
3 hours. Great, I was already about to wet my pants and I had to wait 3 more
hours which turned into 4.5 because they didn’t open it until 4:30am.
Longest
travel day ever finally came to an end around 10pm on Sunday night. All this to
say, I’m in Kiev, Ukraine for the last 3 weeks of the race.
