Sunday, August 19, 2012

Planes, Trains & Automobiles


A great deal of this trip is travel: 15 hours of air travel, 13 hours by train & 5 hours by car, all on the way there! Luckily, we usually travel well. The big difference in this trip was sleep or lack thereof. It's not the accommodations so much as it is the thoughts racing through our minds. What are we going to say? How will the kids react to meeting us? Will they like us? All these in between an hour or two of sleep. It doesn't help that I didn't sleep well the entire week leading up to the trip. The night train is no different.

I watched many kinds of scenery on the train. We started out in the city. Very typical city- buildings, people, walls, fences, graffiti. This gave way to trees. Lots of trees. Big beautiful green trees- pines, others that looked like Birch, some that looked like Aspens, bushes & wild flowers running along the sides of the tracks. As morning broke, the dew came down to settle just above the grasses through the trees. Scattered old farmhouses made of wood were hidden. Some were natural while others were painted. One had bright blue window frames, another was mustard yellow, others followed in Kelly Green, brown & Olive. It's hard to catch it all. I don't want to forget any of this. I suppose I can sleep tomorrow.

Most footage or photos I've seen of Russia is war related. The sights & sounds remind me of movies I've watched or photos I've seen around the WW2 era. When the train stops at each station a Russian voice speaks. I feel like I'm in a movie. Many of the buildings we pass also look like they were built during that era. I feel like we have just stepped by in time.

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