All Aboard

MOSCOW - The time has come to leave the cozy Sweet Arbat hostel, hidden on the top floor of an apartment building near the center of the city. Now I move to different quarters: Compartment 41 of Train #0002, leaving tonight on an express run to Vladivostok.

I spent the morning hitting a couple last sights in Moscow: a sculpture garden filled with discarded statues of Soviet leaders, the modern museum. But the real focus of the day was getting ready for the train ride. I bought cheese and apples, chips and cookies. The Lonely Planet (an increasingly dubious source, I'm finding) says there's plenty to buy along the way, but travellers arriving here from Mongolia report living on sausage and bread for four days.

One of the last things I did was buy a T-shirt that says "Russia" on it in Russian. I really wanted an Aeroflot-Soviet Airlines design, but the cheap material bunched around my shoulders and the sleeves draped way past my elbows. The saleswoman made forced conversation, making sure you knew that her conversation wasn't natural, but part of her sales pitch.

"Where are you from?" she said, before even "Can I help you?"

I dodged the question, eventually said I was Canada (I'm not sure why) and eventually loosened up enough to tell her that I was about to take the train.

"It's very dangerous," she said, and then laughed.

We'll see.

(So I'm taking the train almost to the Mongolian border. It takes just over four days, so there will no chance to post in that time.)