Dear Mom and Dad,
I've arrived in Moscow after an overnight train ride. Top bunk is apparently still 'where it's at.' In our four person kupe there were only three of us: a middle aged man from Chechnya, a girl my age from Petersburg and myself.
As you and others like to ask what draws me to Russia, I've found myself more and more of late answering that I'm bored in the U.S., where everything works. This is not always the case in Russia (read: adventure), so as I entered our kupe at just past midnight to my bunkmate's news that he has bunk #38 while in our vagon there were only 36 beds I thought "this is what you came for." So while we waited for the second document check and as we chatted with our newly arrived fellow traveler, we chatted about this and that.
It wasn't long, however, before the always unspoken game of "what's this guy's accent about" began to be played, until I decided to ease the tension when we started talking about school. I hadn't understood something entirely and casually mentioned "our system" of schooling be different (Russians usually go to school for 11 years, unlike the 12 Americans are used to). My neighbor playfully asked if I was referring to the system of in one ear and out the other and the girl asked if I was from Belorus. People often guessed that I am German or Swedish, but Belorussian was a new one. I put an end to the mystery and endured a polite smattering of therein related inquiries, including the "how'd you end up here?" that sounds more like the question your wisened cellmate asks than kupe-mate.
And then along came the second document check and to all of our surprise there hadn't in fact been a mistake. That is, my neighbor had just been directed into the wrong vagon. So he bid us a kind farewell, soon after the lights were turned off, then they were turned on and I was in Moscow.
As I wait for my flight to Vladivostok, the words from a Tom Waits song swim through my head about how this very same moon in the sky over a chinatown fair could look down on Illinois and see "you" there. I'm in some dungeon of a coffeehouse and can't see a thing, but I've always loved that line.
Wishing me safe travels, your son,
Alex
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