I know there are a few people waiting to read this. I hate it when people drag out there stories for a month so here goes some more.
We had to be at the train by 7:20 in the morning to go to Sochi. I was up and ready for a long time. At 7 I called my ladies mother. She asked me where my lady was. I told here I didn't know. Mama told me that my lady had staid at her own apartment and she hadn't been there yet. Would any of the Russian speakers here care to translate "gushmarl" or something that sounds like that for me. I hear a lot of that when around my lady.
A few minutes later my lady shows up and we have a wild, high speed taxi ride to her parents. We grab her mother and luggage and head to the station. We get there at about 7:25 but the train is late in leaving. So we made it. But then we find out that the agency gave us seats in 2 seperate booths instead of one to ourselves like we wanted. So a few roubles to the lady working on the train and we get our own booth. That is one thing that is both good and bad about Russia. If you have money almost anything is possible.
I thought I would see some interesting scenery on the trip to Sochi. What I saw was either the trees 10 feet from the train or scenery that was as exciting as northern Montana or south east Saskatchewan. What this means is you can see for miles but there is nothing there to see. The train stops for 10-15 minutes every hour at some little town.
Mama had sent along a huge amount of food for us but we all forgot to bring anything to drink. The train served tea for the first 9 hours of the trip. We were both getting tired of tea when we finally stopped at a town that had a little railside market. So we stocked up on mineral water and juice. I have to say I really don't like carbonated mineral water. But it beats dying of thirst.
It took almost 24 hours to go from Volgograd to Sochi. We had lots of time to sit and talk. It was one of the few times this trip that we really did talk. The train we were on didn't have a resturaunt car so we mostly sat in our booth.
We eventually went to sleep and were woken by the train conductor telling us we were near Krasnodar. The terrain down there is really interesting but you don't see much in a forest before the sun comes up. We arrived in Sochi sometime before 7 am.
We unloaded off the train and found a cab to the sanitorium.
More later
