STILL Wednesday, March 8 -

Now we were heading for the train station. It was about a 30 minute drive and we got to the station a little bit early. By this point all the other travelers in our group needed to go potty. We had to wait a few minutes because the cleaning lady at the train station was cleaning the bathroom. We got in and it was a pristinely clean bathroom - with hole in the ground potties again!! What's the deal?!

On our first adoption, we had been warned about these potties and never saw even ONE! Now, on this day, we've encountered THREE. As you can guess, I decided to just wait until we got on the train and got started on our journey. As an aside, there is a rule on the train that you cannot use the restrooms until a certain amount of time outside each city. It's an hour outside of Moscow and most other cities it's 30 minutes I believe. This is because the potty flushes straight out onto the track - ICK - and they don't want the mess near the cities.

Ok, enough potty talk :o)

While we were waiting for our train to arrive, we looked around at the shops inside the train station. We'd been to this train station 5 times before, but never inside like this, we always just passed right by outside and went straight to the car or the train - so this was a new experience. After a few minutes, I sat on a bench with our translator while hubby and D bought some Skittles. A young man came and sat downbeside us and began talking to our translator. I figured he found her attractive and was "hitting on her" but NO it was me he was interested in (tee hee). As it turned out, we were the first Americans he had ever seen! He was from a small village outside of this city and had never seen Americans before. I made sure I was very cordial, since I was representing my country! I was glad, though, when hubby and D returned to my side!

Then it was time to head out to the train. We were a little anxious to be taking the trip alone. We'd always had a "chaperone" on the train on all our other 5 trips between our region and Moscow. We lugged all our suitcases onto the train with the help of our driver (now I know why it's called LUGGAGE!). We've got to find a way to pack lighter next trip! Our coordinator, translator and driver bid us farewell after making sure we were situated in our little compartment. Here is a picture of us boarding the train, it is kind of dark because it was dusk, but maybe if you click on it you can see the train better.

As soon as we got on the train, I changed clothes and took off my pants that had been T-T'd on by D and put on my comfy running pants (hee hee, me and running pants are kind of an oxymoron!)

Then we were off on our trip back to Moscow. The car attendant came by and asked if we wanted tea (chai) and we accepted the offer. It was pretty good hot tea and the cups were so cool we took a pic.

D had a good time again playing in the top bunk.The trip went by pretty quickly and before we knew it, it was time to sleep. I slept a little better on this trip, but not too much. D slept like a dream though, so that's a big plus. I only had to climb down from my bunk one time this trip to go potty, so that was an improvement!

Thursday, March 9 -

We arrived in Moscow about 10 a.m. and there was our translator and driver waiting for us just outside the train door. They helped us off with our loads of luggage. We lugged everything through the station and out through the snow to the waiting van. Oh, how blissful to have all the room in that Honda Odyssey van!! We headed back to the Hotel Ukraina (pictured below) and decided we would just rest that afternoon and hang out at the hotel. We ate lunch at one of the Ukraina restaurants, the Jazz Cafe I think it was called. For the three of us it was $65!!! We didn't splurge either, D and I shared a club sandwich, we had 3 Sprites, a plate of sliced bananas and hubby got some meat dish with potatoes. Needless to say, we didn't eat there again!

Up in our room, D watched her DVD's then we rested. In the late afternoon we took a walk around the block that the hotel encompassed and found a little Gastronom (grocery store). We bought some milk (malako); bread (we pointed - didn't know that word); apples (yablaka); bananas (banan); water (vada). We felt pretty proud that we knew enough to communicate what we needed. Inside the shop you went to a different counter to get each thing and I'm afraid the attendants weren't as impressed with us as we were. We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner that night. We'd already blown our budget on lunch!

Friday, March 10 -

We slept in a bit and then Nadia came to pick us up for a shopping spree on Old Arbat Street. We did some more souvenir shopping. D got a big Madagascar Matryoshka set. Then Nadia took us to a Chocolate/Coffee House. It was a nice place. We got tiny cups of very, very thick, very dark hot chocolate! It was too rich for my taste but hubby loved it! I could only handle about 1/2 the tiny cup and then hubby finished it off for me.

We shopped for about another hour and then we headed back to where we'd left our driver and trusty Honda Oddysey van.

Next we headed back near our hotel and went for our first trip to eat at Il Patio (it was named Patio Pizza on our first adoption and we ate there A LOT those times). We had a nice late lunch then headed back to our hotel where we told Nadia goodbye till our next trip.

When we got back to the hotel I took a good long time to pack the suitcases very neatly and orderly. All the dirty clothes in one suitcase; one suitcase with D's leftover clothes and souvenirs; one with mine and hubby's clothes and miscellaneous. Our carry on bags were neatly packed and ready to go. We went to bed fairly early that night to get our good rest before our trip home in the morning!

Saturday, March 11 -

In the morning we met with the travel agent and paid for our Moscow hotels (the Mir and Ukraina all at once). Five nights $1,095. Then our Russian Program Director came with the driver in the Oddysey and we were off to the airport.

Till later . . .