On the way to Yekaterinburg.

OK. So Sonia and I edited my video of the bike lesson and I sent it off. I hope I don’t have to repeat to much.
We got a taxi at 6:30 to catch and 8 o’clock. It was pouring rain. The roads were so bad, there were flooded underpasses. I thought for sure we would stall out. Then a big blast of water from a puddle hit our windshield and totally obscured the driver’s view. He had to brake gently in order not to rear end the car in front of us. We finally got to the station and walked to the station entrance. It was still pouring. Keep in mind, this is a holiday weekend and lots of people are traveling. Keep in mind that the train station has only one X-ray machine for security at the entrance. Keep in mind that it is still pouring rain. So the line of people trying to get into the train station stretched all the way down the sidewalk in the pouring rain. It took us 15 minutes to get inside the door. We got on the train and we found our compartment for 4. We shared it with the dean of pediatrics at a medical university in her town of Tyumen and a man who was a Tatar language teacher. The lady spoke a little English so we were able to have a pleasant conversation. The guy was supposed to have th3 top bunk, but I don’t think he could get up there, so he sat on the end of the lady’s bunk the whole night and just nodded off. I slept in spurts, but it was certainly bette4 than third class. At one point I woke up and was cold. Hmmmm, this guy. Isn’t in his bunk so he’s not using his blanket. I stole it. The next think I know, Sonia’s shaking me awake because we have to get off the train in 30 minutes. So, up and at ‘me. We eat a sandwich, get dressed and packed, turn in our sheets and get ready to walk to the door of the train. The conductor asks us where we’re going. I tell him and he tells us we have another two hours! We knew that we were going to gain two hours, but the ticket said we would arrive at 8:20. Only down below did it say 8:20 Moscow time +2 hours local time. Oh, rats.
So we immediately checked our return tickets to see when we have to be back at the train station Tuesday night. Same thing. So we checked with two people to make sure we were reading it right. But now we know our train leaves at 10:30 pm and not 8:30 pm. We’ll get back to Kazan at about 11:30 am on Wednesday.