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TITLE: SMUGGLE SMUGGLE
LOCATION: 西安'S TRAIN STATION
MISSION: GET THIS RABBIT ON THE TRAIN!
DATE: 2009-06-26
This morning I picked Mohamed and Kerstin up at the train station and showed them to their hotel. Afterwards I headed directly to Xu Jia's school to meet up with 许嘉 and help her with her luggage. Running late, we took a taxi back to my university to pick 李拉 up, after which we went to the train station. We got there at 13:00 and her train left at 14:08, a little tight for my liking. So we rushed to get 李拉 on the train only to be told it was too late to check animals in. I would have to go to Tianjin with him myself or 许嘉 would have to return her ticket and go tomorrow instead, neither of which was really feasible. So after some heated discussion with the dreg working there, we paid them 200元 to smuggle him onboard. They wanted 300, but you should never settle for what they ask. So, they took the bunny and we went in the regular way. Inside the train station they called and told us they couldn't fit the blue plastic tub in their smuggle-box, so I had to run back out, pick it up, clean it, and then unconspicuously smuggle it back in. This was with less than half an hour to go, standing in the sea of people waiting to board the train. 30 minutes before the train leaves they start letting people on. When we passed the ticket control we had to run with all the luggage up and down some steep stairs to be in time for picking up 李拉 on the platform. After some complications, with only 10 minutes to spare, they finally arrived with 李拉 in a small cardboard box. This was on a particularly hot day, having had far too little to drink with lots of heavy luggage to haul around. Could be one of the most stressful stituations I have experienced so far.