Siberia...if you would have asked me last year at this time whether I would be returning to Siberia next year, the answer would have been a "probably not, but i wish i could." God does amazing things though! and here I am. The train ride was....well, LONG! I took an overnight train from Tallin to Moscow, and then had a 3 hour layover in Moscow. I was reading one of my Economist magazines and a guy sitting accross from me asked to read it when i was finished. I let him read it and then he asked if he could buy it from me =) i told him he could just have it, sorry Todd! hopefully he understands at least half of the articles!
So then I got onto the Trans-Siberian Express. Really, I will never do that train trip again unless I have someone with me who speaks English and is fairly intelligent becuase then at least we will have the option of conversation to pass the time. I was bored out of my mind the 3rd day on the train! The guy in the bunk accross from me was named Kiril. he spoke almost no english and with my practically nonexistant russian we had some funny conversation. there is a page in my notebook that is filled with our doodles trying to explain to each other what we mean! i think i'm going to frame it. i shared my last bar of german chocolate with him the first night and from that point on he was my best friend. he brought me hot water and let me have half his tea and bough chocolate the next day just for me. I read a lot, slept as much as possible, and took in a LOT of gorgeous scenery. Going through the Ural Mtns there was as much as 6" of snow on the ground still. I love Russia.
Denis met me in Novosibirsk and it was hilariously good to see him! He had bought 3 balloons, red, green and yellow, and blew them up and wrote on them "I'm effin glad to see ya Megan!" Further, he had a RED shirt on that said the same thing in yellow letters. Now, for those of you how object to "effin" it is not actually a cuss word and for Denis, it is merely more emphasis to show me how happy he was to see me. I laughed until my sides hurt. I have the T-shirt and balloons and they will be among my most prized possessions =)
We made our way to the bus station in Novo only to find out that there were no more bus tickets to Tomsk that night. No worries though because in Russia there is always another way. There are these yellow taxi-buses that hawk their destination in the bus station and everyone bargains with they guy and they all get told different prices but in the end when everyone is in the van we all pay the same price...still a good deal for the guy. So Denis and I left Novo at 730 pm. The van was packed full but everyone was in pretty good spirits. We had an "uneventful" ride (meaning we did not crash despite driving 120-130kph on a road probably rated for 70kph and being passed and passing cars around corners and with oncoming traffic bearing down, i.e. normal russian driving conditions) until about 30 km outside of Tomsk. We were stopped by the police for "speeding" (how do they know they are speeding when there are practically no speed limit signs on the roads? got me) and when the driver showed the policeman his papers there was some minute discrepancy that the policeman took objection to. So...we waited for about 20 min while the driver discussed this discrepancy with the policeman....meaning that they bargained over how much the bribe was going to be...turned out to be not so bad 300 rubles..about $12.
Victor and Dianna met us in Tomsk with bread and salt...apparently a tradition of some sort in Russia =) we walked over to where Jim and Lavonne live and Jim met me at the door. I stayed at there place last night and it was really great to have a bed that wasn't moving. The church in Tomsk meets in house churches now and so I went to 3 different ones yesterday...just couldn't get enough! =) Jim's was at 11 and it was mostly older ladies that I didn't know but they loved me anyway and that was fun. Then I took my stuff over to the apt where I will be staying and the young people who have church there were already worshipping and i basicaly disrupted their whole worship because 3 of them were really good friends of mine when I was here last year...Alosha, Sergei, and Paulina. It was incredibly good to hug them and i hope to get to spend LOTS more time with them soon. After we were done Alosha and I went to the church at Phil Payne's place and Oxy and Max were there...lots of good discussion (can you tell i'm running out of steam, sorry =) Denis and some friends came over last night and brough cake to celebrate...they will celebrate for anything =) We played Mafia and other card games and had a great time. They are on holiday today and tomorrow for Russian Labor Day.
Being here is still kind of surreal for me, but it is SO good to see everyone and I am looking forward to the next week and a half.