Are you hear to adopt too?

have failed to mention so far how i managed to leave our soap, Frans coverted soap dish and my toothbrush on the Keiv to moscow train, this coupled with the lost tickets means i am now not in charge of anything physical and important.

Since Moscow we have not been the budget travellers that we were ment to be. This is not down to the need for en-suit hotel rooms, but simply that in Siberia there are few hostels, infact untill our next stop no budget accom. We attempted to find the budget hotel, as recomended by the lonely planet folk, in Nigny Novgorod, we sucseeded only to discover its recent closure. It looked lovely. So as time was getting on we checked in to the Hotel Centralia, with its own casino, we resisted. After i blogged to you from Novgrod, we went to the Theater. A classic Opera or Balett that crosses international language boarders? No A Russian comedy about Jews! we left after the first half, fortunatly I never knew what was going on in the first half to worry about the outcome in the second.

We left Novgrod at 5.34am, the time wasnt that appealing, neither was the the thought of walking through a russian metropolois. We managed that, arriving 45 min early for the train, just in case on the 10 min walk we got lost, or accosted, once there, 'Its not on the board, its not on the board. Our Train Its not on the Board'. Bearing in mind we were early and the board only had enough space for 5 departures, still we panicked. 'Ask some one ask some one', 'I can't speack russian', 'Neither can I'. After 20 minuets of this, our our train time was displayed, and anounced over the tanoy in english. Funny how we had to wait for the 5.05, 5.08, 5.18 to leave befor there was enough space on the board for our train.

We boarded the train for our longest stint on a train of 48hours. we get to our beds look up opposit a small child. 'shit 48 hours of crying'. Every one slept till day breack. Once every one was awake and feed it seem that socalising, and in some cases drinking could comence. We sat on our seat grining nevously like the Hamiltons on a chat show, thinking were not sure why we are here, and we are definatly not sure what is going on. We made freind with the gran, mother and baby in our booth eventualy and enjoyed our selfs for most of the trip. I found my self at one point with a half naked, smell russian bellowing 'Shist, Shist!' at me. This is fotunatly not a swaer word but the russian for 6, i had some how entered a game of backgammon with this man, I just wasnt really grasping how he played, let alone the rest of the conversation. It would also appear that most russian can count to 6 in english, so all joined in the shouting.

We made it to Noversabrisk at 3am, there are no hostels, and i type from the loby of a very decrotive soviet hotel, we couldent get tickets for the Opera tonight and there were no plays, so we are going to take a Russian Sauna.

At breackfast I was confronted by an american Lady,

' Are you guys from th US '

' No. UK. '

' I knew you werent Russian, I saw you sniffing your food.......... So are you hear to adopt too?'