On one evening Sergei asked if I wanted to have dinner with him and one babushka (old lady). Table was once again full of delicious traditional Russian food. We ate different kind of salads, meat stuffed blinis (like lettu in Finland), salted cucumbers, fat, liver, fish and dessert. The old lady was very kind and her offerings were great! Russians were very generous and they wanted to share everything what they got. I had with me some candies (salmiakki) and alcohol (Minttu viina and salmari) from Finland. I offered those to the locals but Russians didn´t like them too much. Taste of salmiakki was too strange to them and they preferred to plain vodka. During the days we had some longer stops around 20 minutes. Normally we went out to platform to get fresh air and made shopping with the local babushkas. I usually bought drinks, snacks and something to eat. There was lots of tasty fish sold in near Lake Baikal. Once I bought 300g of red caviar and it was more than five times cheaper than in Finland. That was a Christmas present to me. I love red caviar and I´m usually eating it only during the Christmas in Finland. Russians don´t normally drink vodka and beer at the same time (if there isn´t emergency). That was good to know because when I didn´t felt so good, I just opened a beer can and then I didn´t have to drink vodka. I was surprised how much the locals smoked cigarettes. I think that about 90% of the passengers smoked.

Alexei had English dictionary in his mobile and it helped a lot our communication even thought it was still very slow. Once I was playing cards with Alexei and Sergei and Alexei was translating some words and finally said: tell your life story. I was surprised and thought for a moment and then started to tell about my family, education, military service, hobbies and so on. Then both of the guys told they stories and we translated some important words, used pen & paper and pantomime. Our conversation was very emotional (when boys told they backgrounds) and it lasted many hours. After that conversation I realized that I have lived my life a golden spoon deep in my ass. Russians are very family oriented and during my journey I saw many photos and heard many stories about their families. They were very interesting about my brothers and parents and I was ashamed that I didn´t have any photos of them with me.

I was prepared well before my journey. I thought that it will be boring to travel and I had my laptop with about 30 movies that I haven´t seen before and three books. I didn´t have any problems to spend my time and actually I opened my laptop just once to recharge my iPod and I finished one book. The train went very smoothly and after few hours I didn´t pay any attention that the train was moving. I think it was my fourth day on board when the wagon lady came to me and asked for my train ticket. I was worried that what was wrong but she told that I have stayed in wrong cabin my whole journey. There was a new passenger coming and he got ticket to my place. I didn´t understand my ticket and there was number 12 and I thought that it´s my bed number. It was a wagon number (ups…). Luckily there wasn´t any problem to change our places and I stayed in my own bed. My last day was the only one when I didn´t drank any alcohol because I thought that otherwise I will feel like a s*** in Vladivostok. On my last evening Andrei and Natalie hopped off in Khabarovsk. I said goodbye to them in the station and thought that I can sleep last night alone in my cabin. From the same station hopped Maria in and she had place in same the cabin than me. Maria spoke good English and it was very nice to speak English again. Maria was also coming to Vladivostok because she is going to States to study for six months and she had to get her visa from Vladivostok. Nikita and Sergei joined us to our cabin and we played cards few hours before boys hopped off. Maria was our translator and at the first time we understood each other perfectly. Sergei gave to me two old bank cards as a goodbye present and that was funny. We went to sleep quite early because the train was in Vladivostok at 6.45am. We arrived to Vladivostok on Tuesday morning (16.12) and I was tired but happy after my great journey!!!