海外學子隨筆：Meeting a journalist from St. Petersburg

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　■Zoe and her friends drank absinth on the train.

　After a somewhat strange experience at the Berlin Love Parade, we packed our bags and left our hostel. We hopped onto a train and went to St. Petersburg, meeting Dan the man and Dan's Polish absinth, on the way.

　The only food sold on the train was in the relatively expensive restaurant car that seemed to always be empty, which we only visited to buy bottles of water; though sometimes the train attendants sold pot noodles and chocolate in their compartments as well. As hot water was provided for free on the trains, we lived on cup noodle type foods for most of the journey. So when we heard we had a 3 hour stop at a city called Orsha in Belarus, we traded in US$3 for some Belarusian rubles which turned out to be enough for 4 beers and some food for the journey – by that we mean instant noodles, bread and some jam.

He offered us some Polish Absinth

　On the train Jez and Toby were sharing a compartment with a mystery man sleeping on the top bunk . After endless games of hearts and conversations on random subjects, Dan woke up to join our conversation and as a friendly gesture, we offered him some vodka. He returned the favor later on by offering us some genuine Polish Absinth –55% alcohol and totally delicious. The absinth was so amazing . To those who have not tasted the amazing taste of absinth, the proper way of drinking absinth is to have a teaspoon of sugar over a glass, pour the absinth over the sugar and down into the glass, then set the sugar on fire, quickly stir the absinth with the spoon of sugar and blow the fire off. After a few drinks and hours of chatting, we found out that Dan was a journalist from St. Petersburg. He had gone to Berlin for the Love Parade. He had been partying and hence hadn't slept for the past 48 hours or so, explaining why he spent most of his time on the train sleeping.

　At the end of this trip ,we got on with Dan so well. He actually offered to show us around St. Petersburg when we got there and we're still in touch now. 　■Zoe Law