Day 4: Still on the train

Today I remembered why I love to travel.  I've been so lost lately, and today I rediscovered my passion.  I sat most of the day by the window reading, writing, studying....  I was across from a group of rowdy boys, early to mid twenties I'd guess.  Suddenly, Desert Rose by Sting came blasting over the, until then unused, train sound system.  The boys made a joke of it and did a little dance.  Then the Backstreet Boys greatest hits came on, followed by some Whitney Houston.  Then the sound turned off and has yet to be heard from again.  Russia.

I went back to doing what I was doing when my Korean friend came over to interview me; he is collecting dreams.  That is, he is interviewing anyone he can about what their dream is.  I have no idea what my dream is.  I don't expect to become a very exciting chapter in his dream book.

Later on I was sitting innocently on my top bunk when a boy from the rowdy boys group came over to me, drunkenly, and handed me a Mars bar.  He started speaking to me in Russian and I had to say I don't understand.  Ya ni panemayoo.  Then the entire group of boys came over, after finding out I'm American, and hovered around my bunk, many others on the train began looking on including the train staff.  One of the boys could speak a little English and thus became the throng's translator. He said the guy who gave me the Mars bar thinks I'm beautiful and the Mars bar guy chimed in "you, best of best."  Aw, shucks.  

This turned into almost three hours of boys trying to talk to me, and this poor guy translating.  About 10-12 people got involved, asking me questions, engaging, questioning "Clinton?  Clinton?  Trump?"  "Clinton!!"  I strongly responded.  If you are trying to escape American politics, Russia is not the place to do so.  

The boys from the initial group that gathered were guys who just finished serving a year in the military, and one gave me his army hat as a gift.   I am so afraid he is going to return home to his family and they are going to say "Where is your hat?" and he is going to have to gloomily answer "I gave it to some random American girl on the train when I was drunk."  

They asked me about basketball.  They love Eminem.  And they think all Americans are fat and have guns, and live in the ghetto.  The guy who thinks I'm "best of best" introduced me to his best friend and throughout the night kept calling him "stupid animal."  His friend continued to defend himself.  "No no! I'm stupid animal, no!"   One guy was just looking up English phrases on his phone and with no rhyme or reason would very randomly blurt out some obscure sentence in English and eagerly await a response.  We were taking about "Why am I in Russia?  And What do Americans think about Russian people?"  And suddenly he goes "specialty of the house?"  I was like, "what?"  And I looked at his phone and the surrounding words were beer and burger, food words.  So he meant "what are the famous foods in your country."  

I wish I could better describe this scenario.  I am the first American that most of these people have ever met.  I felt like a celebrity.  It was honestly hilarious, all of them hovering around my bunk, unabashedly asking me questions, having them translated, and eagerly awaiting my response.  There were moments when almost the entire train cart was involved.  The train staff woman, the provodnista, did NOT like me.  She kept glaring at me, at us, but everyone else was having a good time so I wasn't too worried about it.  I got a lot of kisses on my hand and I'm pretty sure I've made a lot of appearances on Facebook and Instagram based on the amount of pictures I took.  I Kate touched the hand of fame.  It's glorious.