Blog 1: Hitchhiking to Berlin and our first train

On the 1st of August, we could finally start this new adventure. All our visas were arranged, we had said goodbye to our friends and family, and we would finish our second year of ATLAS well! In the morning, Myrthe's parents brought us to a gasstation next to the highay, from where we would start hitchhiking within a few minutes. During the rest of the day, lifts were picked up easily and we drove around in a Jeep, Audi, Jaguar, and a private touring bus! Once we arrived in Berlin, we went to our Airbnb and were welcomed by two amazingly cute doggo's and our nice host. We took a cold shower to cool down and went for a walk in the neigborhood.

The next day we went to south Berlin to pick up our traintickets Unfortunately, the person who was supposed to hep us with our tickets was not in, we had to come back at 15:00. So we had quite some time to roam around and decided to look around in the less popular south of Berlin. Accompanied by our buddy Pokémons, we walked around and concluded that some areas of Berlin feel very Austrian; cute, calm, and stylish. When we finally picked up our tickets, they turned out to be "deluxe" tickets.. This meant that we would have our own cabin + shower on the 26 hour journey to Moscow! In ecstacy, we spent the rest of the day running around Berlin, growing increasingly eager to really start our adventure. Fast forward to the next morning at 7:10! We arrive at the main station of Berlin and see the amazingly long train that we're about to take to Moscow roll in and navigate all the way to the front. Our cabin is spacious, has two large beds and a bathroom with a toilet and a shower, and breakfast was also included! The perfect way to start an adventure, we believe. Traveling through the countryside of East Germany, Poland, Belarus, and Russia, we feel ourselves calm down and we're finally able to let the realisation dawn on us: it's happening, we're really doing it!! In the train, we wrote, read, played card games, chatted, watched movies, napped, showered (!), and realised that we were bored.. There exists serene calmness on such a train, despite the noise and the rocking back and forth and we're soaking it all up.

During the trainride, the front and back of the train switched multiple times. That, together with the always present sound and movements of the train, made us feel slightly weird and confused when we went outside during a short stop. After entering Belarus, the distance between the wheels needed to change to be able to ride further. This took quite a while, so we went for a walk towards the restaurant car. Just after we left our cart, it was disconnected to be placed somewhere else. We were luckily just in time to jump out of the train and go back to our cart! After a night of rocking around, we wake up, go for a walk and are already able to slowly read some Russian. With only one hour delay on this 26 hour trainride, we arrive in Moscow! Russia, here we are, ready to face your wonders!