With only 19 days left in Peace Corps I had gotten to a point where I stopped expecting the unexpected. I figured that everything crazy that would happen to me had already happened. Hell, I've been trapped in a gym with tires stacked by the wonderful boys at school (sarcasm), shot with a BB gun, been recruited to give ecology speeches about fake programs in America and was present when a baba offered my friend Mackenzie a bite of her block of butter. So yesterday, when the unexpected once again reared its ugly face I was caught off guard.
Eryn and I headed to the Kyiv train station at 10 pm when the office closed. Our train to Simpferopol was scheduled to leave at 10:47. It is important to note that we didn't have regular printed tickets. Eryn bought the tickets in her village so we had ghetto hand written tickets. We had little reason to doubt these tickets validity as we had used them often in the past.
We walked up the platform in search of wagon 21. Eighteen was the last car. Thinking this was some counting error on part of the train – it's happened before – we walked to the other end. We asked workers along the way where wagon 21 could be and nobody knew. When we finally arrived at wagon 1 where we were told there was no wagon 21 (obviously). All the other information on the ticket was correct. We were told to hurry to the cashier in the train station to help us. We had 15 minutes before the train left.
Eryn sprinted down the platform, dropped her bag and ran upstairs while I waited. The station was really busy so she cut in front of the line. She was told that our tickets were valid, we purchased them, so there must be seats for us. We were supposed to get on the train. She ran back to the platform where we proceeded to approach every wagon. All of them told us it was our problem that there was no wagon 21 and that they had no seats in their wagon.
We once again arrived at wagon 1. There were two women working this wagon and the one was nice and helpful, telling us to get on the train. The other was yelling to everyone she could about how two Americans were trying to get onto the train. The nice woman was on the phone trying to figure out a solution. That's when the train started moving and she yelled, "Get off the train! Get off the train!" So we jumped out of the moving train, crying out of frustration, and stood on the platform watching as our train pulled away towards Crimea.
I wish I had a video of us standing there. We were totally dejected, tears running down our faces, standing with our huge packs and shitty tickets looking after a train and swearing because the situation was so unbelievable, so unexpected, so Ukraine.
As we stood there the conductors on another train called down to us from the engine to see what the problem was. They explained that the Simferopol train had no wagon 21 (really?) and that there was another train tomorrow. As they explained this a man that had been saying goodbye to his wife on wagon 1 came up and offered to help us find another ticket. He took us to the complaints/problems desk where they told us it was our problem there was no wagon 21. He took us to the ticket counter where we were told there were no tickets. He insisted that there must be at least two tickets and miraculously, when she actually checked her computer, two were found. Lastly we stood in line to return our "fake tickets." After an hour waiting in one line it abruptly shut down. By then it was already past midnight. We waited another 45 minutes before receiving a refund of 30% what we paid. Apparently it wasn't their problem there was no wagon 21.
What surprises me most about this is that in that moment where we stood dejected on the platform, I started laughing. When the conductors asked us what the problem was I kept the tears coming in hope that someone would take pity and help us. Later, talking to Eryn, she was doing the exact same thing. The situation is so ridiculous that all we can do is laugh and wish we had a video of us standing crestfallen on the platform. Moral of the story – never stop expecting the unexpected.
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