Day 5: the Paris-Moscow Express

So it turns out this train is *very* Russian. The guards speak literally no English, despite their website advertising them as having undergone "basic English training". Although, to be fair, I speak no Russian.. Or German.. So, fair play.

The other thing that has come to light is that the Russians are actually pretty strict about you sleeping in your booked bunk. No swapping or changing seats. But this is especially true when one of your seats is in the 1st class carriage and one of them is in the 2nd class carriage...!?

Yup. You heard me right.

So we thought, 3 days and 2 nights on a sleeper train, on #honeyschmoon... Why the hell not; let's go 1st class. We booked our tickets through RealRussia, who said at the time that there wasn't a 2-berth 1st class compartment available as it was nearly all booked out; but they could book two 1st class berths, a couple of carriages apart and, "you will be able to change, probably."

What they actually booked was one berth in the 1st class carriage (teapot and teacups included) and a "double" berth in the 2nd class carriage! 

Thanks for the heads up guys.

Captain Hindsight says we should've just booked two "doubles" in the 2nd class carriages. But then we wouldn't have had a teapot to photograph...

Oh well. At least my train guard doesn't have that distinct Russian aroma - Vodka, like John's does.. And at least we'll be in the same compartment for the Moscow-Ulaanbaatar train.... Probably!?