Bohemia Parkhotel Saratov

... to see the name of a town I was entering or a 40kph roadworks sign? Panic! Try to look cool. Stop the bike. Turn off the engine. Take off the helmet. Take out the earplugs. The young officer tries valiantly to talk about the bike, where I had come from, where I was going but the sum total of our conversation was zero. All he wants is a chat!!! He waves me on my way with a cheery smile. Not half as cheery as mine.

... player from the 90s that had a fairly good career and might be still remembered by many french, but I honestly did not know he had such an impact in Kazakhstan... The Kazakh landscape slowly transforms from fertile plains into semi-desertic steppes with ghost industrial towns and crumbling soviet factories randomly scattered along the train track. The soviet had obviously a good time turning what they called "virgin lands" in a a vast project of ...

... no small endeavor. Vodka is poured into all the glasses and passed around, "Za dasrovya! is shouted, and we drink a toast to Friday banyas. I am at a table of naked women, drinking toasts, with fingers greasy from chicken and pickled carrots. One woman starts singing in a beautiful, rough voice, and the other women listen with pleasure for a moment and then join in. They raise thier voices and thier glasses. Jokes are told. Men are cursed or praised, babies talked about ...

... translating my answers for the group. It was great fun to be off-roading in the steppes with a bus full of curious, bright, friendly young people. Do I want to stay in Russia? Of course! I fantasize about learning Russian, at least enough to get by while traveling across the country at a slow, leisurely pace, visiting Albinas friends as I make my way toward Mongolia. But I wait for the Great Eventually, which always arrives. I want to first ensure I can work abroad, by ...