Kazan to Novosibirsk

Hello everyone! I'm closing in now on eight months on the road. I am writing this on one of the many trains that are called the Trans Siberian Express, a night train from Novosibirsk to Krasnoyarsk. It's been a pretty wild month - unexpected events, new people, changes in plans, adaptation. Cognitive dissonance, conflicting priorities, inability to communicate. Those all sound negative but I don't mean for them to be. They just are the things I've been working through.

I'll stop dancing around the elephant in the last month's room. My grandmother lives near San Francisco and has become very ill in the past few weeks. It seems quite possible that she will not be alive when I return from this trip. After some deliberation, I decided that family is more important than any sort of "artistic purity of concept" for this project, so I used a plane to fly home from Perm, Russia, in order to sit by her bedside for a few days and say the words to her that I needed to say to her. I don't regret it at all. On the contrary, I am overjoyed that I made that decision. 

With some more thinking, I believe there is also something to be explored there artistically - if you drew a line directly north from San Francisco through the North Pole and continued south, you would pass about thirty miles from Perm. So I was quite literally halfway around the world when I was pulled home by circumstances out of my control. It's poetic and substantial that it divides the world and my trip so neatly in half. I know there's something there to work with. I don't know exactly how it will manifest in the soundscape, but I know that it will.

Being home like that - thrust into a very heavy emotional space, surrounded by family trying to process the potential passing of our matriarch - when I wasn't mentally prepared to be home for another four months gave me some pretty serious cognitive dissonance and brought me out of the headspace of this art project and journey. That cognitive earthquake lasted for a week or so after I returned to Perm, but now I feel like I'm back in the saddle. That's part of why this update is coming later than it would have usually. I finally feel like I have my head back on straight.

Anyway (I was told by a Russian English teacher that anyways is just plain wrong, so I'm trying to clean up my act), here is what I've been up to:

NIGHT TRAIN TO KAZAN, RUSSIA - MAY 02-03
My first night train - the real Trans Siberian experience! I shared my 2nd class carriage with an older woman who didn't speak much and a 35-40 year old man named Vitaly who tried his best to communicate with me in broken English. He had to leave the train at 3 am, but we chatted until almost midnight. I don't know if he had ever met an American before.

Notable events include:
- Not much, really.

KAZAN, RUSSIA - MAY 03-07
Kazan is the capital of Tartarstan. The Tartars are historically Muslim, and the Russian empire is historically Orthodox Christian. About half the population is Tartar Muslim, and the other half is Russian Christian. The architecture reminded me of Jerusalem, with all this Christian and Muslim imagery, mosques and churches, right up next to each other. It was quite different than Jerusalem, however, in that no one seemed to want to kill each other for religious reasons.

Notable events include:
- Finally being in the cheap part of Russia: large meals hardly cost $5 (with a drink!).
- Meeting Ali, a man from Pakistan who was in Kazan for a startup conference. He interviewed me about my project and various other things - that should eventually be up on his website, but doesn't seem to be there yet.
- Sergei, the manager of the hostel, setting up jam session for me and all of his musician friends from Kazan one night. It was a lovely few hours of musical and cultural exchange.
- Meeting Adelia and Alise, two Tartar students. We walked around in the rain and talked about conceptions of each other's countries, among other things.
- Getting a ride in Max's convertible. I met Max in the hostel. It was the first car I had been ridden in months - and it was fast!
- Exploring an old abandoned Soviet prison.
- Meeting Tony, the blind traveler who has been on the road for nearly ten years. His experience of cities and countries was not based in sight (obviously), and more based in sound and smell, so we had a lot to talk about.

NIGHT TRAIN TO PERM, RUSSIA - MAY 07-08
I shared this carriage with a mother, her 5 year old daughter, and a 30 year old singer from Perm who was obsessed with American R&B from the early to mid 90s. The singer was impressed when I pulled out my guitar and played the chords of some song she had just showed me.

Notable events include:
- Communicating via hand signals and sharing food with the 5 year old girl.
- Showing the singer my guitar.

PERM, RUSSIA - MAY 08-09
I was the first American to stay at Hostel My World in Perm. I know this because they have a scratch-off map on the wall and I scratched off the first bit of America (I only did California). This is when I got the call from my mother about how ill my grandmother is. Needless to say, I was quite frantic and kind of at a loss as to what to do.

Notable events include:
- Riding bikes around the center of town with the hostel owner and a friend of his.
- Going out to a hookah bar with live music until 2 am with the hostel owner/manager and some of his friends.
- Leaving at 4:30 am to fly back to San Francisco.

SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA, USA - MAY 09-15
I've already said most of my takeaways from home in my opening monologue. Happiness to be by my grandmother's side, cognitive dissonance at flying and breaking up this travel and art project I've been dreaming of for five years. A lot more questions than answers about whether I want to move back to the Bay Area at all. Jet lag for the first time on this whole trip. A lot of emotions.

Notable events include:
- Seeing my grandmother (have I mentioned that yet??).
- Seeing some friends from Oakland that I wasn't expecting to see until I got home in September.
- Eating a burrito. Those things are so good! I hadn't had a good once since October in Texas.
- A day at the beach with my friends.

PERM, RUSSIA - MAY 16-21
I flew back to Perm, the same city I had left from. It was very strange to be back in the middle of my trip around the world having just been home. Despite this cognitive dissonance and a bunch of jet lag, I ended up loving my time in Perm. The people here were very good to me - I had a much better time than I would have expected from a city whose name I didn't know two months ago.

Notable events include:
- Meeting Freya, a Kiwi who is taking the Trans Siberian at the same slow pace that I am. She will show up again.
- Meeting Aleksandra, a local woman who comped me tickets to an opera where she worked and brought me to the Kavinsky Bar.
- Extending my stay for two nights to play a show in Kavinsky Bar. I heard from the owner that their talent for Saturday night had canceled and offered to play for them. He had me do a little audition right then and there and I was hired on the spot. A local drum teacher named Sergei who I met in the bar joined me on djembe for the second set. 
- Hearing that there would be a concert outside the Perm Art Gallery - it turned out to be a poetry reading. I went and understood nothing. It was very strange to see people reciting poetry with a drumset and electric guitar behind them. Maybe I just missed the show??
- Meeting Farrouk, an Uzbeki who hung around the hostel and got hookah and sharma with me. I had never had a long conversation with an Uzbeki before. He taught me how to play Russian blackjack.
- Hanging out in the bar after my show until 8 am, talking with the owner and a few others, eating and drinking for free.
- Missing my train. I got to the station very early but was so delirious after my 8 am night that I didn't realize there were two sets of tracks and waited at the wrong ones... Oops!
- Masha and Ann, the hostel employees. They taught me to curse in Russian and took pity on me when I missed my train and comped me a night in the hostel ("because you are loser").

YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA - MAY 21-24
Another Siberian city, the fourth largest in Russia. Yekaterinburg (YE-ka-TE-rin-BURG) is the first city on the Asian side of Russia. I was expecting it to be more Asian but it was very very Russian. Lots of Soviet architecture. Not a lot of people walking around at night. It has a nice river running through the middle.

Notable events include:
- Walking the Red Line around the city - literally a red line on the sidewalk that takes you past all the main tourist attractions downtown. The city is really getting ready for the World Cup next month.
- Meeting Freya again. We went out for lunch at a traditional Russian buffet and then sat by the riverside for a few hours.
- Meeting fellow Trans-Siberian travlers in the hostel - Boris (from Holland), Nina (from Germany), Amy (from London), and Amine (born in Casablanca, spent the last 13 years in Paris). This hostel was not full of long-term residents, as many of the previous hostels in Russia were. This one was for travelers and I appreciated being able to speak in English so much.
- Literally straddling the Europe/Asia border. It is only 10 minutes outside of town.

NIGHT TRAIN TO NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA - MAY 24-25
This was my first overnight in third class on the Trans Siberian. There are no doors in third class, just 72 beds with an aisle running through, loosely divided into groups of six with small walls between each pod. I was surrounded on all sides by Russian navy soldiers, one of whom spoke some rudimentary English. They all were fascinated by the fact that there was an American in their midst and peppered the English speaker with questions to ask me that he couldn't translate. Thank god music is a universal language. As my friend Brennan said to me, maybe I can repair USA-Russian relations with a guitar! Ha. Not.

Notable events include:
- Playing a small concert for the Russian Navy soldiers. Once they heard I was an American traveling with a guitar, they all clamored for a show. I played them some songs of mine and some famous songs. They even sang along with a few of the covers!
- Amy (from London) and I were on the same train, so I took a break from Navy land to join her in 2nd class for dinner. We sat in the corridor, ate dehydrated mashed potatoes from a cup, and watched the landscape fly by until the sun set at 10 pm.
- The snoring CO of the Navy soldiers. He didn't just snore on the inhale - he also flapped his lips on the exhale! What a night to lose my earplugs. I didn't sleep.

NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA - MAY 25-27
Another Siberian city, this one the third largest city in Russia at 1.5 million. Siberia has been draining my soul. I went out to a hip bar in the hippest part of town on a Saturday night and there were maybe ten people there. No one in the street. I was talking to Freya and we each have the same experience of having less energy in Siberia. Usually we like to go out almost every day and see the city and eat the food but in Siberia I am just as likely to stay in the hostel for an extended period of time. Why? I have no idea. Something about being in Siberia just drains me.

Notable events include:
- Seeing Amine from Casablance again! We stayed in the same hostel.
- Meeting Tatyana, a local woman who took me to a medieval cultural festival, complete with a replica of a Mongolian village, people with foam swords and shields smacking the shit out of each other, a shish kebab cooking competition, and 10-year-old Russian girls in traditional garb doing traditional dance. Altogether something to remember.
- A trip to an art gallery that featured the work of a modern Kazakh woman who works primarily in plastic-shopping-bag collage.
- A night at two local breweries with Amine and Tatyana. I was the first Californian in one of them! I know becuase I filled in California on the map on the wall.

NIGHT TRAIN TO KRASNOYARSK, RUSSIA - MAY 27-28
My carriage-mates included an older man who had a friend doing a doctorate at a school in Massachusetts. He wouldn't stop talking about said friend in Russian once he determined I was American. He never opened his eyes when he spoke.

Notable events include:
- Not much, really. I was very happy to be back in second class with a fresh set of earplugs. I wrote this update.

I have a few cities left in Russia, and then it's off to Mongolia for a few weeks, through Beijing and Qingdao to South Korea, into Japan to see some old friends, and then back to Shanghai to wait for the cargo ship that will bring me to Seattle. And from there it's just a short hop back down the West Coast and home. It's amazing how the distance flies.

What a month! A lot of emotions, a lot of grey skies, a trip in an airplane. Friendly faces from some new acquaintances, glares from others. A lot of people talking to me in rapid Russian even when I explain to them in Russian that I do not speak Russian. Pointing at menus. Discovering the Google Translate camera. A full Trans Siberian experience, including a missed train and a sheepish face when I showed back up at the hostel. It wasn't always great, but I wouldn't redo it either.

I think my next update will be after Mongolia.