Platzkart is Coming Up Better than Roses

Well, I rode home from Kyiv for the first time on *gasp* platzkart (all of you who were never afraid of this can cram your snorts of laughter back to where they came from)...and loved it! Ha! That dose of extreme be-afraid-be-very-afraid I received in dear old Prolisok when we first got here is finally diminished to a very tiny seed stuck somewhere in the bottom of my sock.

When Kathryn (who lives in the next village over from me) and I arrived, banging the knees of virtually every other passenger in the car with our enourmous unwieldy luggage, we were met with eight shafts of curiosity beamed from the eyeballs of four men. The two teenagers sharing one seat across the aisle were not a big deal. They were harmless, that could be seen from the start. All we would have to put up with was a running commentary on everything we did, including discussions of whether or not we understood what they were saying (we did), punctuated by manly giggles.

It was the other two guys that were not exactly a plate of savory hors d'ouevres, or so we thought at first.

The first one - the Drinker - was what they call smoogly - ruddy, gently rounded, with slightly craggy features. He was small, but tenacious. He asked us to drink "just sto gram" about sto times, until I pulled out the one and only trump card seized from Russian camp, which I told to the other man as a kind of off-handed commentary on the situation: "He can tianet patianet, but vueytianet ne mozhet!" Figuring that a girl who would make a weird reference to a turnip-themed fairy tale meant business, the Drinker quietly downed his fifth and final shot alone.

The second one was a different story. Silent. Teetotalling. Lon Cheney and Leonard Nimoy's love child. Every time I looked at him, I had to blink to make sure he wasn't about to observe, of me, "It's life, Captain, but not life as we know it." He was the one who broke the ice, finally, by asking us the now-classic question in Ukraine: "What is your name?"

And once the ice was broken, it turned out that our new pals the Drinker and the Thinker were not such creepy guys as we first thought. I pulled out my trusty deck of cards and showed off by shuffling rapidly, as only a true Minnesotan with years of cabin experience under her belt can. "Anyone for Durok?"

We played nine rounds, the girls winning a landslide 6-3 (the Drinker was, simply, really bad; the Thinker openly scolding him by the end), and then everybody tucked into bed. One of the last things I heard, as I clumsily wrapped the sheets around my lumpy mattress, was the boys from across the aisle exclaiming about my tattoo. "Did you see that? A shark," one said. "I bet that shark would eat you!" giggled the other.

Ah, platzkart. Is there any other way to travel?

P.S. By request:

Platzkart: (n.) the wagon of the car where the beds are all open, as opposed to kupe (coo-PEY), where there are 4 beds in a little room. Platzkart is much cheaper. In an area there are 4 beds stacked bunk-style, with 2 beds across the aisle running lengthwise. It's more crowded, less private, and generally filled with kids and drinkers. Whee!

Prolisok: (n.) the Soviet-style "resort" where Peace Corps volunteers often stay. This palace of paradise includes moldy ceilings, bumpy parquet in the hallways, and a volleyball court, which kind of balances things out.

Sto gram: A phrase, colloquially meaning "Have a drink"; literally meaning "100 grams" of alcohol, the size of a shot.

Tianet patianet, no vueytianet ne mozhet!: A phrase, literally meaning, "He pulls and he pulls again, but pull it out he can't!"

Durok: (n.) literally, "fool". A freaking awesome card game played in Ukraine.