Eleven Time Zones

Getting on the train from Samara to Kazan was a piece of cake:  no pushing, no stumbling, no crowding.  I was in a kupe with three men, but we didn’t talk at all and I never felt bothered.  But then it started to get hot…and I mean really hot.  Like sauna hot.  And a headache hit me.  Then I started to get nauseated.  I decided I *must* do something to cool off so I went and stood in the no-man’s-land between the two railroad cars.  It was cold enough there that you could see your breath, but it still took me about ten minutes to cool down enough that I felt like I could go back to my kupe.  I opened our kupe door and was immediately hit with Man Smell.  I sat/slept fitfully until morning when the largest and smelliest man got off the train.  Then I binged on the Red October candies I had bought at the train station, had some tea and finally drifted off into a real sleep.