Already the conversations are fading from memory.

When we picked up youngest son and his fellow traveler at the airport, they were only something like 20 hours from Russian soil. And less than five in America, and most of that in an airplane.

They were still in culture shock. And incredibly, incredibly happy.

You'd think the Cold War was still on, and we'd just won them back in a prisoner exchange.

But no, not because of the recent tensions between our two governments. But because Russia is still, so, well, primitive. Maybe not Third World, but not modern, either.

Their greatest relief?

Being back in a nation with toilets.

Yeah. Toilets.

Yes, tourist Meccas like St. Petersburg (or just "Petersburg" as these world travelers called it) have public toilets.

But not Saratov. A city of over a million.

Yes, they have public "restrooms" available. But there are no porcelain toilets inside said rooms. Not even a board bench with a hole cut in it.

No, there you do your business in a hole in the floor, where water then washes it away.

Basically you're peeing or crapping into an open sewer line.

His fellow traveler, who happens to be female, mentioned the women's rooms usually had a basket nearby for collecting the paper waste.

Mind you, this isn't just the usual tampon tubes and menstrual pads that aren't even supposed to go down Western plumbing. No, these bins were collecting all the paper waste generated in a room where women fulfill their basic bodily functions.

Ohhhh.

Joy.

When their class arrived at University, they met two American students from Michigan who had already been in town for two weeks.They advised their western compadres, "McDonald's is your greatest friend."

You see, that chain restaurant has a store in Saratov.

And they have toilets! Real honest to gosh flushable white facilities for completing the human functions of life.

There's another American food chain in Saratov, also with flushable toilets, but apparently you have to buy something in order to be allowed into the back rooms. But not McD's.

They really had a lot of good things to say about McDonald's.

Spent a lot of time in their part of town.

I have forgotten so many of the other stories they told me during our late, late night drive, and the 1 AM meal at Denny's. But they both commented that most Russians their age or younger wanted to know...

"Why are you here?"

"We all want to go to America. Why would anyone come here?"

Yeah. He's talking about going back...