The Day in Between

We spent a lovely 9 hours in Kiev before running back to the train station. To fill the time, we had some bread, watched some TV, went to the grocery store, took showers, took a short nap, went to school to steal some internet, and repacked. Probably one of the most productive days we’ve had in a while. Except for, you know, the nap part.

So the train ride was 15 hours. It left around 8:30pm and arrived in some town we can’t pronounce 15 hours later. That was an interesting ride. Audrey and I shared a little bed cubicle with a babushka (grandma) who only spoke Russian and a guy our age who only spoke Russian. To pass the time, we played cards:

We used some of our coins for betting purposes..

I won. Just for the record.

We ate:

We drank:

We slept aaaaall night. When we woke up, we grabbed some tea from the lovely train people. I FREAKING LOVE THESE CUPS.

Are those seriously not the coolest things you have ever seen? The tea came with awesome tea packets:

It was just a long tube with little holes in it. They were called ‘Less Spoon’. Ha, get it? Because you didn’t need a spoon to stir it, you could just use the tea packet. Yeah, that entertained me for longer than I would like to admit. We also got a brick of sugar. It looks like an eraser, right? Right.

Haha, Audrey is so cute.

Now I’d like to take this moment to talk to you about something serious. Train bathrooms. Over the years of traveling with trains, I’ve gotten really good at just holding it. Because seriously, those things are just nasty. Hell, the ones in Switzerland were gross and that was like the cleanest country in Europe.

Let’s have a small test:

I want you to imagine that you’re using a public Ukrainian toilet.

-Is the seat dry?

-Wait...Is there a seat?

-Is the floor dry?

-Are the walls clean?

-Is there toilet paper?

Did you answer ‘no’ to any of these? Out of the five options, you can answer ‘yes’ to one of them. If you’re lucky, you can have two yes’s. (You’re not usually lucky.)

Now I want you to imagine using a public Ukrainian toilet on a train.

…

Have I hit your gag reflex yet?

Un-freaking-fortunately, after years of abuse, my bladder probably looks like that awesome tea packet. I'm surprised that I haven't sprung a leak yet.

I didn’t take a picture of this one because no one needs that picture burned into their memories. If you do want to imagine it though, think of the worst bathroom ever (ever) and then add in a hole in the ceiling for rain to come through.

I pretty much showered with my hand sanitizer after spending 45 seconds in there. It was only that long because I stood there in horror for 15 seconds staring at it.

I am now almost out.

In other news, we had chocolate croissants for breakfast.

Next up, YAAAALTA.