Hitting the Road

I was so ready for our vacation...life is good here, but sometimes everyone worries so much about my well being I feel like I'm 6 yrs old. Molly and I escaped the confines of Vladimir to go running around St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev, in that order and I got to be an adult and a city girl once again.

I'll start by telling you about the train. I have become much more intimately acquainted with the Russian train system, particularly night trains. The best option is to go "platzcart" which is the cheapest, and means "thrown into the mass group with everyone else". Because your train is open and full of many people walking around, it's actually safer. The next class up is "kupe" which costs a lot more and consists of 4 people in an enclosed compartment. If you don't like each other, someone smells, or someone is creepy, you're still stuck with them. Sometimes you get a little free food in kupe, but this didn't happen on one of our legs. However, we did meet some old Russian men who for some reason knew only the word "boyfriend" in English. It all worked out just fine but I have no desire to repeat the experience. Our trip was a mix of both types of travel because we bought tickets so late in the year. Everyone has a bunk/shelf they can sleep or sit on, but when you have the top, your options are pretty limited.

Here's a picture our compartment and one of the funny sign during a "kupe" leg where the train was actually clean and included food. Notice the English translations.