I could easily write a couple pages about that trip but I'll restrain myself and just speak to the adventure on the train. We were in Kiev for, I think, four weeks before we took an all-night train to Harkov. The way there was an adventure in itself in that I had to use the restroom facilities while underway. After four weeks I was used to the, shall we say, splendid variety of options available in that department. I'd seen the hole in the ground and the ceramic hole in the ground and the metal hole in the ground...and the occasional lovely pot with seat that I was so fond of from my homeland. The train had one of those lovely pots but I'm pretty sure it hadn't seen a scrub brush since the fall of the Soviet Union. I kid you not, that image is burned into my mind as one of the top 5 grossest things I've ever seen. You couldn't even stand near it, that's how bad it was. Finally I decided to stand on top of it and the swaying of the train was enormously unhelpful.

Therefore, on the ride back to Kiev I very purposely didn't drink anything, but I did walk thru about five cars to visit our other cabin of folks before getting into bed. Unfortunately I didn't realize they locked the first class cabin doors once underway. We weren't in first class, of course, but I had walked through it from my cabin to the other. So there I was, in my pajamas which luckily were very respectable shorts and t-shirt, with no way to get back to my cabin or let them know I hadn't been kicked off the train. We stopped at one point and I thought of making a dash out the door, up five cars, then back onto mine -- luckily the gal with me put the kabosh on that idea. It was dark, I was ID-less and in my aforementioned pj's. She was one smart gal. ;)

Suffice it to say I spent the night sitting upright on the edge of someone else's bunk with their feet in my lap and in the morning had to make a mad dash through the crowd of disembarking passengers to find my clothes and bag.