Our tour guide

Right behind me on the bus this morning is a little girl, probably about 4, who's providing a brilliant commentary on our trip and every now and then, treats us all to a little song. My favorite so far is when the bus started moving, she very clearly told everyone "Here we go! Hold on tight!"

There's also a lot of "whee!" and "Is this it, Mommy?" We had just left about 2 minutes before.

That was fun, but then I got on the bus that comes down to the office and because of construction, we unfortunately had to take a detour, so it took longer. That wouldn't usually be a problem, but today, the bus smelled like the lifts in Ukraine. Since probably most of you haven't had that singular experience, let me do my best to describe it. First of all, they aren't elevators. Elevators are nice. You can lean on the walls of an elevator. Elevators also have lights.

Lifts, on the other hand, make you afraid to touch anything but the floor button, and even then, you do it thinking about the next time you're going to wash your hands. If you could use your transcendental meditation skills to levitate yourself so you don't have to touch the floor, you definitely would. There might be a lightbulb in the lift and sometimes, the light might even reach the floor and you wish it wouldn't. But really what's awful that relates the two experiences is the smell. Ukrainian lifts almost always have a pool of urine on the floor. A guy goes out with his buddies, gets totally wasted, and then heads home. He just can't hold it anymore on the way up to his apartment and this seems like as good a place as any, so he just lets it go in the lift. And no one wants to admit they did it and no one wants to clean it up, so it's there for who knows how long, drunk guys just adding new stuff to what's left over after some of it has evaporated over the last few days. That's what the bus smelled like this morning. I'm hoping the ride home this afternoon is less smelly.