The train to Nizhny

After another great bike meeting at work where we convinced the 3-Time Russian mountain bike champion to come teach kids to ride a bike at our school once a week, I went home and relaxed until it was time to meet Sonia. While still at home, I noticed that my toilet was starting to leak. Oh joy. I immediately texted the guy from school to let him Know. He said he’d check on it this weekend. In any case, Sonia and I got a cab at 8:45 and got at the station at about 9:29, where Fouad was already waiting for us. We went through security and into the waiting room where we were promptly told we couldn’t sit in the massage chairs that we’re stsnding in the back row unless we were going to get a massage. Our train was announced and we went to our wagon where we had to line up and show our tickets and passports before we could in. So picture this. We booked third class. There are compartments with two lower beds, two upper beds and no door. Across the aisle are an upper and lower bed parallel to the side of the train. The lower bunk her can also be converted to a table with two sests.sonia and I had the two lower bunks in the compartment and Fouad had the aisle. Two middle-aged Russian men had the upper bunks. We had to get the sheets and blankets and make our own bunks up. The guy above Sonia got into his bunk immediately, fell asleep and snored.it was actually not uncomfortable. I woke up a couple of times because my blanket sleeper off the bed, but otherwise I slept well. Usually it only takes the train about 5 hours to Nizhny, but the night train moves much slower and takes longer stops. And it was actually very quiet. We got to Nizhny at 7 and decided to go across the street to MacDonald’s to get breakfast. I had a cholesterol-filled big breakfasted scrambled eggs, sausage and english muffin. They had helium balloons floating on the entire ceiling for International Women’s Day. It is really a big deal here. Since it was still early and we couldn’t get into our apartment until 2, we checked our luggage at a cloakroom by the train station and looked for a tourist office or a newspaper stand where we could by a map because we had forgotten to download one. Two women we tried to ask on the street walked right by us. Hmmmmm, these are not the friendly people of Kazan. The other thing that really surprised us was how old the public transportation vehicles were. Most of the buses had plastic or cardboard over the grill to keep the engines from freezing. And the subway stations are relatively new and very clean and well-lit, but the trains themselves looked like vintage 1960s. After wandering around a flea market selling things like old bicycle rims and lanterns,We finally went into a mall which opened at nine And asked a lady selling cosmetics where we could find a tourist map. She told us to go to the House of Books and explained how to get there on the bus. Since it was only one stop, we walked. We get to the House of Books and, of course, it’s closed for International Women’s Day. But this place is gigantic. I’m going to spend half a day there when we get done with sightseeing. But, what to do now? There happened to be a couple standing in front of the store drinking and they suggested we go around the corner to the hotel on Lenin Square. Brilliant suggestion. It was a really nice hotel and Ivan at the reception desk directed us to the gift shop, where we got a map of Nizhny. Then we sat down and used the hotel’s WiFi to plan our day and see where we had to go. We also used the bathrooms! Since it was still early, we walked down to the Alexander Nevsky cathedral, which was just one more bus stop away on the same side of the river. It is right next to the new stadium being constructed for the World Cup soccer matches and it’s directly across the Volga from the Kremlin and the Church of the Nativity. It was a sunny, cold day and the view was spectacular. And, wonder of wonders, the time-temperature display showed that it was above freezing! This is the first time in more than 3 months. Now we figured it would be good to get our luggage and head in the direction of the apartment. We figured we could find something to eat near there and then we would be on time. We just HAD to try one of those old buses, so we caught one back to the train station, got our luggage and took the subway into town. We walked around Gorky Square looking for a place to eat. We refused to go to macdonald’s And another place was closed because of the holiday. But we found Tanuki. It was a Japanese restaurant and it was jumping. It had a very lovely decor and the food was great. We decided we would do lunch again there on Saturday, when we have to leave the apartment. So, now we had to find the apartment. Sonia googled it and the entrance turned out to be in the alley right behind the restaurant. that’s the weird then about Russian apartments. The entrances and the stairwells all look like places where you’re going to get mugged, but inside the apartments themselves, they are very nice. This place is no exception and it looks out onto Gorky Square. The guy showed around, explained the TV and how to log in to the WiFi and then left. Of course, the WiFi did not work. So I called the guy. He would get back to us in 5 minutes. After 35 minutes I called again. He would take care of it. Meanwhile, Fouad had fallen asleep so Sonia and I took off to the Kremlin. It’s an easy 20-minute walk through a very attractive pedestrian zone. We found an Alyonka chocolate store and lots of other nice things. The Kremlin itself was very nice and of course there’d were people walking everywhere because of the holiday. from the heights we had a beautiful view of the Volga and the Church of the Nativity. As we are walking around, the guy calls about the password for the WiFi and Fouad calls that he is awake. We told Fouad we would met him at the Alyonka store for tea. After we relaxed there for awhile, we headed to a grocery store to buy things for our dinners and breakfasts. In the grocery store some drunk yelled at us for speaking English. “You’re in Russia. You should speak Russian.” If you haven’t personally had such an experience, you should never criticize non-English speaking people in the States until it has happened to you. Very, very unpleasant. After we got back to the apartment, Fouad cooked our supper, I cleaned up and we all cooked out. Tomorrow more of the same! I’ve found two things which really characterize Russia. Usually, half of the escalators are not working and the ones that do go very fast. Second, in winter, people tend to walk on the sunny side of the street because it’s about 10 degrees warmer.