We made the train! As it turns out it's an old one because the "newer" one broke down. I got a kick out of the toilet flushing right out onto the tracks. Got in a little trouble for using it at a train station stop...whoops. Said our good-byes to Maxim and Jhenya, and it's hard to believe our time with them has come to a close. We talked about them coming to Canada sometime soon. They made no bones about their nervous feelings about such a trip. We told them it's no problem! They've never left Ukraine, so it's hard for them to wrap their minds around the long distance to Canada. But I'm confident it will happen soon!

So this is definitely a new experience for everyone - riding the train. In Ukraine it is much more preferable than bus travel, but a lot slower too. At times you could run beside it!

Funny story. So we left the hotel at 7am this morning with not a lot of time to spare, needing to catch a bus, two different metros, and do a fair bit of walking in between, arriving at the train station in time to catch an 8:30 departure (should've gave us more time, next time). Jhenya had our train tickets from the night before. So we are at the bus station and I ask her to give me the train tickets. She says, "what train tickets?" Ha, ha, joke right? Nope! She says she doesn't have any train tickets. By the time I'm past exaspirated, we realize she has confused the term "bus" and "train". She has the train tickets after all. My heart settles down after a couple of minutes, but these translation glitches make me nervous when there's deadline on the horizon.

Sara's listening to some of Angie's country music right now. It's amazing how a little piece of home like that can ease the discomfort of culture shock.

8:35pm

We've been on the train for 10 hours and it hasn't been so bad. One of the highlight of the day occured dureing a quick stop-over in some Moldovan town. Every time we've stopped there has been a plethora of people trying to earn a few bucks either selling beer, fruit, or even playing an instrument. so this guy walks by with an accordian and I mention in broken Russian to a train attendant that I play a little accordian as well. He responds by calling the accordian player over, whereby the old fella strips off the instrument and hands it to me! I have to be quick on my feet here, and recall an Irish tune that I barely get out. He smiles. They congratulate me, then the old gaffer rips up a tune of his own that FAR exceeds my meager abilities, and he sings to. Before you know it people are dancing and you have this priceless moment.

The train attendants have warmed up a little to us. One man, Grigori, wants me to invite him to come work in Canada. We communicate by using my Russian/English dictionary and it works out quite well considering.

We will be in Chrisinau, Moldova by around 11pm and will then try to find our hotel, something right out of the Soviet era, called the Turist. Since we're tourists, it should work quite nicely...if we can find it!

Crossing the Ukraine/Moldova border was a little sketchy. The border guard wanted something from me - a Canadian coin? Could have been bribery, but I think (don't laugh) that he actually had a coin collection and needed a Looney for it. I offered him a Canadian quarter (after much searching) but he refused, saying (I think) he already had one. Interesting eh? Anyway, after about 20 minutes we finally got our passports stamped and we're in Moldova!