Don’t drink and drive….but what about sleep and drive??
so since you are reading this, it’s obvious that i’m still alive…
but i regard that as another miracle that happened in my life….
seriously it takes nothing less than a miracle for us to reach our hostel safely…
so in short, i went to italy. the whole 14-days-journey of travelling up down and all around we managed to do it safe and sound….untill….
when we reach the airport in moscow…we were expecting a van coming to fetch us up back to nizhny novgorod, where my hostel is, fyi…
but instead of waiting for us in front of the terminal, we had to wait for him for almost 2 hours, which is about 1 hour and 20 minutes later than what he had promised…
after he arrived, instead of him coming near the terminal, we were asked to go to the car park, which is about 200 m walk in -10 celcius of russian winter.
that was fine…we forgive him….as he’s just being russian….
but then…wierd things happen along the way home..things you wold oni find in russia…
you’ve heard of don’t drink and drive….since alcohol will influence on your cns and make you do stupid stuff like banging your car against the big tree trunk….
but what about sleep and drive?? (yes i do mean simultanously)
is that even possible, you ask….
if anyone could do it, a russian can…
the driver is obviously very sleepy….but he refuses to admit it and stop and rest….a typical russian ego…
so for the sake of our lives (9 of us) we asked him to stop us near a mc d to give him time to rest…
but when we say rest, we meant like 30 minutes or so, for him to close and rest his eyes for awhile, NOT to take a long nap for 2 hours with both his legs on the next seat( my seat) …..
and that’s exactly what he did….
he has the highest of sleeping threshold….
we didn’t mean to be rude by waking him up from his sweet dreams, but even in the van all 9 of us were freezing under russian winter while he was sleeping soundly….
so we tried every single way known to man to wake a person up :we tried calling his name at the top of our voices, laugh at our own jokes like nobody’s business, shake him, call his handphone, shake the car…..etc…
when he finally woke up to look around and reliase that the car is not moving and he as the driver was supposed to make it move, he started the engine, and slept again on the steering wheel…..for 15 minutes or so…
our plane arrive in the airport at 530pm….but we oni started our journey back to nizhny novgorod like around 11pm…..(another 1 and a half hour is to find the mc d )
to keep him awake and guarantee our safety, we bought him a double expresso from mc d…..and we thought it would keep him awake for the rest of the journey…
but after one hour…..he started his sleep driving again…the cycle as i observe is as follow…
1st he feels sleepy….then the start to hit the break….and the car would slow down in the middle of the road…when the car behind overtake him, he will be awake again and start to accelerate the car….before he starts getting sleepy again and the cycle repeats….
it’s like a reflex…his leg would automatically hit the break when he feels sleepy…sometimes during his REM sleep(superficial)…the car will slow down and accelerate alternately within a few minutes….
during his deep sleep….the car stops in the middle of the road….and i don’t mean metaphorically…this happens oni a few times though….
i had the "honour" to sit beside him to keep him awake throughout the journey so that the people behind could take a good night sleep…
but this guy is unbelivable….when he starts to feel sleepy, he smokes….i was surprised to find that he could finish the whole packet of cigarette within 2 hours……and i had to bare with the smoke as i was sitting next beside him….
so i was in a dilemma….to wish that he do not feel sleepy, so that i do not die of car accident…. or to wish that he stop smoking so that i have lesser risk of dying of lung cancer….
thoughout the night i did not have a proper closure of eyes as i do not wanna wake up in some other place….i even tried to keep him awake by hitting the doorto create a sound that would shock him……for maybe about 15 minutes…
but what really did the trick was the phone call he recieved at about 6 am…. which made him really angry,,,,he was shouting through the phone while driving…( another bad example, do not try this at home)….but the rage in him tells me that i could finally close my eyes for about 20 minutes before we finally reached the hostel…..as he would not feel sleeping under that kind of emotion…
when i stepped on the ground….i really feel blessed….
to top everything up, he had the gut to ask for another 500 roubles….for the reason that he had to drive overnight back here….(although he DID NOT miss any sleep at all)
well, russians will always be russians….
about my trip, i’ll tell about it in the next few entries….
