Schmime Zones

Somewhere in Eastern Siberia

At this point in the trip, I'm dealing with three different time zones. First, we've got GMT, which is the universal time zone of the blog. All of my posts are referenced with this timestamp, and my iBook is permanently synced with the Greenwich. That's 5:24 pm right now. Second, we have "Moscow Time", which is currently GMT +4. This is the time zone that all of the Trans-Siberian trains run on. No matter where in Russia you are, all of the train schedules are listed in Moscow time. This can be a lot different than the local time as I believe Russia spans 11 time zones. So, Moscow time: 9:27 pm. Last, but not least, we have the time zone that I am currently in. I'm not sure exactly where in Siberia I am, but I know I'm about 9 hours away from Irkutsk, screaming through the Russian night on train #340, and we just entered Moscow Time +5. So, the current local time is 2:27 am (tomorrow), and almost everyone on board is asleep. I'm stuffed in the hallway right now (so I don't interrupt my four bunkmates) clacking away on my laptop. Every once in a while, this Russian dude squeezes by me, and gives me a strange look. He even tried to talk to me at one point, but I didn't speak Russian, and he didn't speak English. So, there you go.

Life on the train has become fairly routine, and it really does pass quicker than you would expect. Wake up, eat some noodles, drink some tea, read your Dostoyevsky, fuck around with Photoshop, have an apple, make some D20 notes, do some Garageband work, eat more noodles, have a jerky conversation with a drunk Russian, get beat in chess, go to bed. One day down, and the morning brings Irkutsk and Lake Baikal.