Daily life in the train

Encounters and routine

There’s a young woman having a wash. I go back to my compartment and begin to write a new text. When I’m tired of it, I stop and go for a stroll. In a train, we can think, dream, talk, listen to music and try to meet new people. The second compartment from ours is the young girl’s. I stop and ask her in English where she’s from since her skin color has me think that she’s from India. Actually, she’s from Sweden and has Sri Lankan origins and her name is Singoala. She is with her boyfriend Carlos, originally from Colombia, and he lives in England. The third person in the compartment is Louis, a Taiwanese who also speaks English but also very good French. They invite me to sit down and we begin to talk a lot on topics about Taiwan, the European Union, Sarkozy, politics, life, immigration, and all sorts of different things. When we arrive at the border, we see the difference between Russia and China. The Russians look more like Westerners, but they have a very brutal method; for example, when they take your passport, they repeat your name as though you were a suspect and then they have your luggage sniffed by a large dog and they search all of it with a flashlight as though you were supposed to have something really bad hidden. After, I go back to talk to my three friends. What’s funny is that I have the privilege to be the first one in the carriage to have my passport back. Since we are all tired, we say good night and I go back to the compartment with dad. According to the billboard indicating waiting time, the controls are supposed to last more than 6 hours, so I ask dad if he needs me and he answers no, so I go to sleep.