Boarding the Train

Today we had to be at our "graduation ceremony" at 10:00 AM and everyone was absolutely exhausted. They asked us all questions in Russian and none of us could answer them-- how embarrassing! After the ceremony, I was too tired to go out and nobody could get anywhere near the Peter and Paul Fortress, so I decided to stay home and pack, which I desperately needed to do. I did that and alternated with watching the funeral on TV.

I think that at some point I took a nap.

At about 10:00 PM we all assembled to go to Moscow. All together it was nine of us-- Dan, Page and the two Italian girls and Diana. Victor and Xenia came for the bus ride to the Moscow station. Carrying my luggage was absolute hell. I wanted to pass out! Thank God that Victor helped me. Anyway-- we walked around the station for a while because the two Italians and Diana had to go on an earlier train because they couldn't get tickets on ours. I was singing Broadway songs in the train station.

Finally, it was time to get on the train. There was a huge gap between the train and the platform and I was afraid that my luggage was going to fall in. Luckily, though, it didn't. We pulled all our lives through the most narrow hallways imaginable. (Literally--there was not even an inch on either side of my suitcase). And we made it to an even more ridiculously small cabin where we had to squeeze in four of us and our luggage. (Me, Ally, Katherine and Tricia.) It was really fun though. We were laughing and took a lot of pictures.

Ally and Katherine both had to use the bathroom and said that it was a smelly hole that emptied onto the tracks. I determined that I would hold it in for the whole 8 hours. (Midnight-8:00 AM). Finally, around 2:00 AM we fell asleep, listening to music and talking...