On the train to Yekaterinburg we were lucky enough to have a sweet couple staying underneath our upper beds who let us sit on their bed as well as having some conversation. They didn't speak English very well, yet we managed somehow to gather some information about each other. Since this would be a quite long train ride, Franzy and I thought it would be a good idea to teach them "Kniffel" (also known as Yahtzee). Actually that was not too easy, regarding the fact that we couldn't communicate properly. After that they brought us tea and a cookie. We also started sharing our food. Timur and Anastasia, our train heros!
They actually made an instagram post about us and our travels. How happy they were that, even though we didn't exactly know their language, we tried to communicate and how Russians - even though they share the same language - don't bother to talk at all. It was a beautiful experience. After this train ride, we arrived in Yekaterinburg and took the bus to our next Couchsurfing host - Oleg. He's a full time traveler and earns his money with YouTube advertisement. (Check him out here: https://www.youtube.com/user/PrikhodkoOleg , he's definitely worth looking at!) Oleg welcomed us at his home and very soon it became obvious - he was just another tea addict! Well and so became we. As soon as we mentioned that we were hungry, he offered that we could cook some Russian dish. So after we had a Skype Call with our Professor who basically told us that China is not going to happen, we went to the kitchen and prepared Bortsch. A Russian soup which mainly contains beetroot. Olegs secret ingredient was tomato though and he even stated that it would be the most important thing within this soup. "And if you don't have tomato, you can use ketchup" - this dude taught us life lessons!
But then it was time for us to explore the city. Soon we found a place of interest, a little slide.
After that we went into a Café - our IBS family is big and since every single one of that is hardcore international, we had a friend coming over. Who? See for yourself!
It was Qehreman! We had a coffee together and basically talked about what's been going on. About our travels and what we're gonna do about China. Actually now we might be going to China at the same time. How cool would that be? Two different IBS-Semester in China together for one year. That's something that'd happen for the first time ever. Let's see how things will turn out.
The next day we started exploring Yekaterinburgs Nature. We took a bus which took us close to a huge park and before we knew we found ourselves in a beautiful winter wonderland. (Slideshow!)
It was freezing cold and people were skiing and bobsledding across the whole park. It was really nice to see everybody out there, happy, enjoying the snow. We once more realized how weather had changed back home in Germany. Back in the days we were also able to witness such kind of snow masses - today this really doesn't exist anymore. At least in our parts of Germany (Berlin & Hannover).
At home we enjoyed some time with Oleg again. "I think you need some tea". We played our song for him and he gave us cool hats to wear. How that looked like? We'll drop a picture for you guys.
And faster than we thought we found ourselves back on the train. One more detail we have to mention (which will become important for the post about Mongolia!) - we met 2 Swiss and one German guy on the platform and chatted to them for 5 minutes until it was time to go into our wagons. Since they were staying in a different one than we did, we thought the contact was gone. To find more about that, just stay tuned.
And off we go! Big hug and kisses Chanti & Franzy Take your Chanzy #takeyourchanzy
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