Round the World with Us

Right now I’m lying on the sidewalk outside of a Moscow train station, waiting for the 4 am train. It’s probably around 1:30. Moscow has been filled with smoke from the wildfires in Russia. This morning we emerged from the hostel to find ever street and alley filled with this white smoke, blurring everything in the distance. The smoke stings our eyes; it is like being next to a campfire fueled by wet wood. Some of the people we passed on the street wore surgical masks; others hold tissues to their faces. It is a relief to be leaving Moscow. Alex likened our morning walk to the metro to a zombie apocalypse. We passed two workers sitting next to an open manhole, and suddenly a third man popped out of the hole. As we jumped from surprise and walked around them, the description of a zombie apocalypse seemed even more accurate.

We are outside in the smoke because it is too hot in the train station. The street is warm on my back, and my head is resting against a silver rail on the wall of the outside of the station. The was a stray dog, a chocolate lab, that walked up and down the sidewalk a while ago. Alex tried to feed him tropical trail mix, the only food we could find in our bags, but he didn’t want it. Other people are here, waiting for their trains too.

A drunk Russian man has spent the last ten minutes trying to teach Bella Russian words. We are all ignoring him in the hope that he will go away, but Bella doesn’t understand the concept of ignoring someone, especially when they are paying so much attention to her. Ever y once and a while it will seem like he is about to leave, but then she says, “Hey! Look at this drawing I made! How do you say wolf in Russian?” and he will be sucked in again.

Finally drunk man left, but not before giving Meagan, Bella, and I kisses on the hand and suggesting in broken English that we go around the corner with him. When we explained that our whole family was here by motioning to Doug and Alex, he shook his head and repeated his gesture to follow him. Clearly Alex and Doug were not invited to the potential excursion. Luckily, one of our three Russian vocabulary words is net, and we used it repeatedly.

As we were standing up and putting on our backpacks to enter the station, he asked for Bella’s number. I’m sure he didn’t believe her when she answered that she didn’t have a phone, but it certainly was the case. We haven’t gotten sim cards for our phones yet.