Read Online Backpacks and Bra Straps by Savannah Grace - Free Book Online

night train, I could see baggage and limbs alike hanging over the edges into the aisle.

    “How’d you sleep?” Mom asked Ammon in the morning.
    “I was freezing, ‘cause the window was jammed open, but then someone came by and threw a blanket over me in the middle of the night.”
    “Well, that was sure nice of them.” It always made Mom happy to hear about other people’s kindnesses.
    “Yeah, it was. And how did you guys make out?”
    “I think Bree might’ve chewed off some of my toenails during the night, but other than that, it was actually pretty okay,” I said.
    Ammon looked at Bree suspiciously and said, “You beast.”
    She rubbed her belly and made an animal-like chewing gesture, “Yummm.”
    Knowing our journey was coming to an end, many of the passengers wanted to trade gifts and asked us to autograph their tickets or books for them. As I smiled and handed a notebook and pen back to a new friend, I guessed that tourists, particularly Canadian tourists, were as rare as celebrities to them, ‘cause they saw so few of either. We were certainly off the beaten track.
    I handed the train conductor the cloth ‘Vancouver’ patch from my daypack, and we exchanged decks of cards with Sergei. His sweet face lit up when I gave him the green ‘Vietnam’ bracelet Ammon had given me as a gift years ago. In return, he traded me some of his old, collectable Kazakh coins.
    Despite it being such a cramped journey, the people who opened up and befriended us made it special. We’d gotten to know many of them, and I was thinking about how incongruous the shouting match had been earlier. Perhaps their behaviour was not actually threatening or aggressive, but simply a normal expression of their forceful culture, in much the same way the Chinese would push and shove at a cash register instead of lining up in an orderly fashion. Perhaps their usual speaking voice was just set at a higher volume than ours. We’d seen a lot of screaming matches, but none had ever actually turned physical. For all I knew, what we interpreted as ‘Move your bloody fat ass, or I’ll move it for you’ could’ve simply meant, ‘Would you like to share my bench? Please. I insist.’ I was surprised at how faulty first impressions can be, and reminded myself again how important it is to keep an open mind about unfamiliar cultures, at least till you know what’s really going on.
    Everyone said ‘Goodbye!’ and we did our best to respond with, ‘ Do svidaniya !’ Though we’d spent less than a day together, it felt like we were leaving good friends.

Longsocks
8
    I left the train feeling so positive about the people we’d met that my first impressions of Kazakhstan were replaced by much more optimistic sentiments. I even felt a bit sad that we probably wouldn’t see any of them again. Our new friends waved to us as we all went our separate ways– some to go home, others travelling on, but few with no particular destination in mind like us. We were just heading off to explore, but I felt confident that we would meet more friends along the way.
    “Almaty is the largest city in Kazakhstan. It was the country’s capital until 1997, when Astana replaced it. It’s easy to confuse them, ’cause Almaty used to be the capital, and it’s still the biggest city in Kazakhstan,” Ammon said. The train station and local architecture were very similar to Russia’s. I was surprised that so little had changed in the way of people or culture, given we were in a completely different country.
    After we’d been walking around for what felt like ages again, looking for accommodations, Mom asked Ammon, “Why is it so hard to find a place to stay here?”
    “Most foreigners coming here would be involved in oil somehow. There’s very little tourism, so they mostly just have only fancy hotels and no hostels or guest houses,” Ammon said. We still had gotten no recommendations as we left yet another four-star business hotel. The struggle to be