I arrived back in Vladimir yesterday evening from my big trip to Ukraine. It was a wonderful trip, and we--the teacher I traveled with and I--saw three very different and very beautiful Ukrainian cities: Kiev, Lviv, and Odessa. I must say I liked Lviv the best, although all the cities were interesting and beautiful in their own way. The trip went pretty much without any problems, and we had a great time. Tonight is New Year's Eve, so I don't have much time to write a lot (guests have already arrived at my apartment), so I'll just post a few pictures of the trains we rode on. I have many more pictures and stories to come! 

We spent 5 nights on trains, and mostly they were nice enough. I didn't sleep all that well on most of the train trips because the trains were very hot, and I am too tall for the beds, and my legs stick out into the isle, so whenever someone walked by in the night, they ran into my feet. All but one of those trips we took in platskart, which is an open train car that is somewhat separated into areas that each have 6 beds (three on the bottom, three on top). So I think there are somewhere around 50 people in each car. The other trip we took in kupe, which is four beds in a compartment with a door that shuts. The beds are bigger, and, because the tickets in kupe cost more, the fellow travelers tend to be a bit more cultured (platskart can turn into a big beer-and-vodka bash sometimes). Anyway here are some pictures: 

1: Leaving Moscow for Kiev

2. Arriving in Lviv

3. Our train to Odessa

4. Leaving Odessa for Moscow (23 hours in that train car!) 

5. The inside of the Odessa-Moscow train