October 29th

I’m on the train to Kislovodsk and I’m sharing my cupé (compartment with four beds and a table in the middle) with one American, Brenden Fox, and two Russians. As per tradition, we all brought food and set it out on the table and partook in the feast together. I brought bread and Nutella, Brenden brought cheese, and the Russians brought bread, cheese, kolbasa, and tea. Quite the meal, and standard fare for a Russian train (which has a particular culture all of its own- unlike trains in Europe). Anyways, we got to talking, and, amazingly, my Russian seemed up for the challenge of conversation today so it was really quite a bit of fun! We talked about what they did (both were Scuba divers on their way back from vacation in St. Petersburg) and made small talk about such things. One of the guys was born in Voronezh, so we talked about his hometown for quite some time (easy to do considering how in love with that city I am). From there we began talking about politics. They asked us about our President, the diplomatic answer being “On normalni” a catch all phrase that means “Not good, not bad.” These guys were shocked and said, “No, on chorni!” which is “But, he’s black!” In case you haven’t heard, Russians are a racist group of folks… Anyways, we said it was unimportant and moved on from there. We compared our democratic systems a conversation that I understood so little of that I couldn’t really contribute anything meaningful or tell you with any certainty what was said. One of the guys had been to Barcelona so we talked about the architecture of Gaudí and such things (a conversation I’m pretty sure I’ve never had in English…). Well, a good time was had by all and thankfully no vodka was poured (to refuse is so nekulturny it’s not even funny).