Moskva!

Compartments on Russian trains come in four classes: 1st class (spalnyy vagon), which is a sleeping compartment for two; 2nd class (kupeyny), a compartment for four; 3rd class (platskartny), which is essentially 54 cots bolted down in one uncompartmentalized wagon; and 4th class (obshchiy), unreserved bench-seating where there may or may not be a place to sit and where there may or may not be livestock. After an uncomfortable experience last year in platskartny, I opted for the 2nd class ticket for the young girl's erotic journey from Milan to Minsk -- except the girl is a guy, not young, not erotic, and from Minsk to Moscow.

Fate seems to always mess with my mind when it comes to transportation. I usually sit there in my nice seat thinking, this one time, I'm going to finally have some leg room or elbow room. The empty seats beside me will taunt me, like a wounded butterfly does a kitten. And I can always see that guy from afar who has been assigned the seat next to me - slothlike and lumbering, noticeably unkempt and unbathed, rocking back and forth as he drags his white plastic bag down the aisle at shoulder level, knocking head after head on his way, slowly every slowly, to the place right next to me.

But not this time! Just two twentysomething secretary/advocate types, Olga and Olya, quite pleasant, who gave me some of their crackers and I gave them some of my beer (which is the custom in Russian trains). They asked me all about America and I asked them easy questions about Moscow and I could understand their Russian much better than I could understand those pesky Belarussians. And I actually ended up sleeping exceedingly well.

I've been walking all day long around Red Square and my feet are absolutely killing me. I write this in the TimeOnline internet cafe, which, with 200 computers running, is supposedly the largest computer cluster in Eastern Europe. And only 60% of them are occupied with annoying teenage boys playing video games.