21 hour train trip

papa had prepared us well for getting onto the train,so we did it with no problems. I had to carry my 55 lb suitcase up a large flight of stairs with my 25 lb back pack on. So what ever i bring home--just know its not the gift its the effort I put into bringing it to you that is special. After we got on our bunking party started. One small problem--Dayan, Norma, and Shelia had a Russian man in their cabin with them. Thank goodness Papa made Chris go stay with the girls and the Russian man went to stay with Sasha, Tim and him. The man had told them he would leave while they changed clothesLOL, Don't you know that man was having to spend 21 hours with a bunch of loud American women. I didn't realize how picky I was about food until this trip. In the last couple of days I've been buying and throwing out food often. Chris gave me a bag to bring home of red caviar flavored Lay potato chips. They brought us dinner last night and it was the best meal I had had in days. mashed potaotes w. small meat pattie(who knows what kind of meat) cabbage salad, 1/4 piece of dry brown bread, a packaged cake, butter , jelly and mineral water. or water with gas They love it here, its like tonic water. This morning at 10 they bought most of thesame food but the main dish was rice with fish. At 10 in the morning. So I ate 4 cookies and hot tea. We had fun and great conversation on the trip. We did language lessons, lots of talk about our schools and teaching methods, and we solved the world's problems. Cindy, tim and I had gone down to the dining car early on the trip. Later in the night other people went down and figured out it was a Russian Brothel!!!! They sure had stories to tell about that!! The women were trying to accuse us of stuff we didn't do this morning. Crazy!! We're not sure what exactly happened with that. I had to sleep up in the top bunk and it was quite funny getting me up there the first time. Connie got it on film and I know will use it to blackmail me next year. again about an hour out they started to count towels and sheets again. No way would you be let off the train with a missing hand towel from your cabin. Another thing we stopped once for about 20 minutes and they were selling whole dried fish sorta like fish jerkey. Yuck. When we arrived we noticed some Indian looking people Dr. Brooks told us were gypsys. They have been begging for money. We haven't seen any before this town. He told us this town is a minning town and different from other towns we have been in and to stay together and don't be out alone. WE met at 6 and got a two hour tour of the city. Ekatrirenburg is a city of 1,300,000 people and is second to Moscow for traffic jams. It is the third largest city in Russia. They have a lot of Russian Orthodox churches that were destroyed by Stalin and are now being built back by the government I don't quite understand that. We are going to the Ural Mountains tomorrow and will stand with one foot in Europe and one foot in Asia. We'll also get a tour of all the Tzar places in town. I'm tired and i wanted some good food tonight. We found a division of KFC, but through communiction errors I ended up with 3 greasy chicken wings and some fries. Oh well, I"m off to bed. Love to all.