Riding the train to Barnaul

The train was basically like a plane ride that took forever; but I could lay down, so it is okay. We had a layover in Novosabeirsk (idk, but that is what it sounds like to me). It was 4 hours. Julia told me that we would leave the train and walk around a little bit in the city, but we weren't able to. We just sat there in the unmoving car. The city was huge, with over 3 million people in it. When the train finally pulled out of the station it seemed like the city just went on and on.
The toilet on the train was also really interesting. At first when I was on the train, I wondered why the US doesn't have passenger trains as much, because they are really practical. If we wanted to go to Yellowstone, we could just go in the train for a couple days or so and get there for less than it would cost to drive. And then I used the toilet and realized why the US doesn't have them. The toilet is normal(ish, as in you could sit on it if you wanted to and there was toilet paper as well as water in the bowl), but when you flush it it just opens up to the rail road. How unsanitary! I felt such guilt every time I used it for littering on the rail road.

I didn't really take too many pictures today of the stuff I should have. I mean, the scheduled orientation I took pictures of, but the barbeque get together at a rotarian's huge house I took no pics. They always say something when you bring out your camera and are less willing to do interesting things around you.

One kind of weird thing is that over and over again different people assume I speak Russian. Even the Russians that speak English sometimes try to speak Russian to me. They always tell me that it is because I don't look foreign. Not that I look Russian, but not American. I look very European- or so I have been told a few times. This makes me happy.But is also makes me wonder what an American looks like. By people's reactions when I ask them to describe to me a typical American, it is not a pretty thing. No one ever does describe one though, so I can't know for sure.