22nd August, day 11 - Berlin to Warsaw
With a rather long 7 hour train journey coming up I decided to chill near the railway station and get a bit updated on some things on the laptop. Had a filling but totally average vegan burger meal at Peter Pane to last until the evening. Even though the burger was average, bonus points for the fries mayo on all the tables being vegan, even though the restaurant also served meat.
Train left on time, but soon stopped for an hour for a technical issue. Later I heard the engine was needed for another train from Berlin, so they made us wait for an hour while we got another engine.
Hit the restaurant car for a few beers. At this stage I realise I sillily and slightly arrogantly hadnāt prepared for Poland at all. The train is operated by Polish rail and the restaurant waiter doesnāt speak a word of English. Beer ordering isnāt really that much of an issue anyway, but it just felt silly not even being able to say thank you in Polish. I had prepared pretty well for Copenhagen, somewhat for Hamburg, not really for Berlin and none at all for the rest of the journey. I thought I would just prepare on the way as time goes by, but Iāve actually ended up quite a bit less sitting at the laptop than I had imagined.
Deep in thoughts about how to ask if I can settle my bill, I leave the restaurant car with my camera bag under the seat. My seat neighbour later arrives back to the seat and tells me they saw me leave the restaurant car and asked if I left a camera bag in the restaurant car. I hurry to the restaurant car and the bag and camera are still there. Lucky again! This accident ends up being lucky in other ways as well, as we end up talking and that proves useful later.
Our car soon loses electricity and at the next stop the train crew tries to repair it. Some of us are offered a switch to another train, going to another station in Warsaw. I imagine this may be the train our engine was given to š. Thanks to my new friend I joined the volunteers moving to the other train. Absolutely nothing has been announced in English the whole journey. We continue onwards in our new train..
Until a smell resembling driving away with the handbrake on starts to appear and soon the car has a haze of smoke in it. There is no announcement but after a while a crew member walks by and tells us they found one of the brakes of the car stuck, due to āreasonsā. May or may not be ok now. With a slight headache building up due to the smog, we head off again to Warsaw, this time reaching the Gdansk station without further events, almost 2,5 hours late. Exciting train journey.
The Polish public transport app Jakdojade works really well for finding a route and buying a ticket. What is not clear is how one uses the ticket to get past the gates, so I end up buying another cardboard ticket from the vending machine. I probably won't be needing further public transport, so a mystery for another time.
Short metro ride later and finally at the hotel, some minutes past midnight.
Total kilometres travel approx: 2210km