Last day in Transnistria

Did 33,000 steps today and legs/feet don't even hurt, toughening up is fun. 

Took a long morning walk along the Dniester river, fell asleep on a bench and was moved along by a friendly soldier, lol. There are soldiers EVERYWHERE and mostly they seem to just be looking for anything to do, mostly they are watching that you don't take pictures of certain buildings or monuments.

Lunch at a cafe, amazing cabbage rolls, waitress refused to accept that I did not speak Russian, talked a mile a minute the whole time, lol.

Saw those few sights that Tiraspol has in the afternoon before dinner at the same place as last night, The Larionov, then back to the train station for the daily back to Chisinau.

PICS!

The strangest tasting mineral water I have ever tasted, my mouth rejected it on first swallow, very interesting.

This guy is about to have a bad day, he's sitting on the same wet paint I just set my pack down on, went over to tell him and noticed he was extremely drunk, explained the paint which he seemed to blame on me, made myself scarce.

Cabbage roll and beer lunch, different than any I have had before and really good, if pungent.

The bartenders at The Larionov, ate there both nights, he was friendly but spoke no English, she was friendly and kinda goofy and unlike most people spoke some English, both meals there were excellent, cheap and fun.

Tonight was seared pork cheeks with this sauce of tomato, cottage cheese and navy beans on a bed of polenta plus lots of the local Tiraspol beer, really good and really well prepared, $5 Canadian.

Hank/Frank's Transnistrian cousin?

I was sitting near this Ferris Wheel when a little girl, about 3 or 4, came up to me with her bottom lip trembling, she said "Mama?" and started crying, she continued on in Russian, getting more and more upset, people were starting to look, I took her hand and walked her over to the first couple who could actually speak to her then we set off in search of Mama, found her after about five tense minutes, no one spoke any english so there were some awkwardly sweet sign language bits for relief and thanks. This whole thing lastest less than ten minutes but I won't forget it for a long time, the idea, unlikely as it would be, that we might not find the girl's mother... ugh.

Remember the toilet in Trainspotting... I think this one beats it... I had no choice.

So many cool old Ladas

This Lada wagon was really stylish

A Volga! Never seen one before

 Lots of Russian Orthodox Church presence

Doing my best Dermot, camera on the ground, tough guy shot

This coffee shop had impressively good cappaccino, the woman working there spoke not one word of english but we got along fine and had some laughs, until I motioned with the camera, like most people here she did not want to have her picture taken, fair enough.

This awesome statue of Lenny sits in front of one of the buildings that I knew I wasn't supposed to photograph, I thought I was very stealthy shooting from across the street but as soon as I snapped this a door opened behind me and a young solder came marching over, he scolded me a bit but was pretty halfhearted about it, then he asked if I might have a cigarette he could bum, at least I think that is how the discussion went.

Russian T-34 tank on display as a monument to the Russian liberation of Tiraspol in WWII.