Crazy nostalgic

Here is a confession - I don't fly. I used to, but I don't anymore. What happened - don't know. Probably an inspiration.

Don't tell me that it's more dangerous to drive than to fly. Don't tell me that dying in a plain crash is less likely than being struck by lightning. Don't tell me that I have to see a shrink. And definitely don't tell me that I have phobia. Phobia, as any shrink will tell you, is an irrational fear. My fear is rational - remember, we had 3 plain crashes in only last couple of months? Yes, I am actually counting them, because people were there, you know.

I want to travel by train. It's amazing to me, America builds so many wonders, including democracies abroad, but it can't build a decent railroad which exists in every self-respecting country.

I want to take a train and go somewhere, just as I did when we took school trips. It was the most romantic thing. During the day we kids would play games like charades. It was hilarious. In the evening somebody would play a guitar and we would sing songs until it was very late. On every station, there were old women standing, selling boiled potatoes with garlic to train travelers - probably dirty, but extremely delicious.

And at night, I would climb onto my upper bed - there was no way I would sleep on a lower one, for all the money in the world. I would look through the window, then fall asleep to a soothing song of a moving train. And sometimes I would wake up at midnight, and the train would be standing on some station, and I would try to guess the name of the station and look at the trains running by.

Here, while you are complaining about the airlines loosing your luggage, not being ontime and serving terrible food, I am being nostalgic about the train rides. I left them back in the former Soviet Union where it was hard for many people to get airplane tickets, so they traveled by trains. Just like I left my childhood there.