12 April – EASTER SUNDAY: Happy Easter! We are going through thousands of miles of birch forest. Some places the ground is covered with a foot or more of snow and some places the ground is nearly bare with only patches of snow. Every few miles (10 – 50) we see small villages with mostly unpainted wooden buildings. Dark weathered wood homes, some with a whispy string of gray smoke rising from a small stove pipe, a snow covered garden just outside the back door and very few people to be seen; this scene is repeated over and over.
Every four hours or so our train stops for a short time (3 – 30 minutes). Usually the stops are just long enough to get off and buy a drink or snack from a platform vendor. Neither our compartment window nor the windows in the aisle open so the fresh cool air outside is a welcome change. Our group has become very aware of the train’s schedule because the doors to the toilets are locked about 5 – 20 minutes before stopping and are not unlocked until about 5 or more minutes after we have departed the urban area. Sometimes this can total an hour or more and can cause “scheduling problems” for older beer drinkers.
Our tickets include two meals each day from a very restricted menu. This includes 2 drinks which can be a couple of large bottles of beer. The down side of this is that I have been feeling so badly that even the thought of beer is less than appealing. My misfortune is another’s gain, someone in the group would always step forward.
The Chinese chronic cough continues: periodic coughing spells (Jerry and Linda also have these symptoms) and I am still having one or two fever-chill episodes each day. This has been off and on for two weeks and doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Fran gave me a list of doctors in Moscow and St. Petersburg that honor Blue Cross/Blue Shield Insurance. If I am not better when we get to Moscow in two days I may have to contact one of them.
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Today is Easter Sunday, and because we’re on our way to Moscow, we’re all on Moscow time, and I got up at 4:30 AM. First time in decades Ive been up for Sunrise Service and was actally happy about it!
Going through forests of birch and white pine and cities of log houses and fancy painted shutters. We are trying to get our bearings with a combination of up-to-date tourist guides, an out-of-date map of the Soviet Union, and our train schedule – all in Cyrillic. Best as I can figure, today we are between Krasnoyarsk (old name) and Sverdlovsk (old name for Yakaterinberg), more or less.
I am working on sudoku puzzles not very successfully. I spent all afternoon on about eight easy ones and could only get two done right. I need a lesson. Fran