Onto Kazan 4.09.12-7.09.12

Well being on a train for days sure does give you the opportunity to think about things. There's something extremely romantic about being on a train, something to do with watching the world go by out the window...even more romantic is having rain pour outside as your toasty inside nuzzled into your blanket. Being rocked constantly is also a plus of being on the train, easy to get to sleep though we had to relive the first five hours because we immediately switched to Moscow time which is now behind Sydney as soon as we got on the train.

So something I was meaning to write about was our ever growing list of first world problems.

1. Lack of constant decent wifi access
2. Finding 'non-whitening' skin products-face wash and moisturiser
3. Explaining cold and flu symptoms in any language
4. Non sandpaper toilet paper
5. Drop hole toilets
6. Train toilets.....ewww
7. Non- English Menus
8. Lack of Facebook notifications (Talitha's nightmare)
9. Lack of phone reception

hmmm there's a lot more but I cannot think of any right now...

Arriving in Kazan this afternoon to hopefully ditch the cabin fever that I'm now convinced that I have.

I've avoided the dining car parties both all nights on the train, not by choice but because by seven thirty I'm ready for bed! Train lag could potentially be worse than jet lag only because your not just dumped in a new time zone and forced to adjust, we are told that we have to put our watches back 4 hours and then have to relive that 4 hours over again.....the days are very long. Thank goodness for reading, movies and music.......battery power!!!!!

One lovely little note I forgot to mention...Adiesya...a little girl who through sheer determination wanted to outdo on all fronts, burping, screaming, running and gross habits however she was the most adorable little thing running up and down the cabin, we even managed to speak some Russian with her....she was so sweet (sometimes). She would be in our cabin and you would just hear "ADIEYSA!!!" from her mum a couple of doors down. I think my favourite memory of her was when she just walked into our cabin door and we were mucking around making different noises she plugs her ears and lets out an almighty scream, one of those super high pitched ones. We were in hysterics and then you hear "ADIEYSA!!!" from down the corridor, she runs out down the hall and then silence for a moment followed by a second almighty scream at the top of her lungs......cheeky girl :)