Arrival
Ready or not, here I came. After quite awhile spent negotiating the airports, I have arrived at the Euro-Asia Division headquarters in Moscow safely. Current time in my neck of the woods is about 6 pm. However, since I just woke up a few hours ago I feel surprisingly refreshed. For those interested, here is a description of my travel.
I suppose it was 7:30 pm when I said my last goodbyes to my family and girlfriend at BWI airport. I then attempted to make it through security and had the most hassle of my trip. "Uhh, sir. Do you, uh, have an, uh, laptop in that bag?" "Yeah, what's it to ya?" "Dyaa, you're gonna need to, uh, take it, uh, out. My large, uh, x-ray-zapp-uh-your-laptop machine, uh, wants to see inside your bag..." And so on. Finally got through with the contents of my carry on backpack rearranged (with particular care taken to hide my spare underwear) and the top of my laptop scratched a little more than before. Thanks BWI security. On to my gate to wait for boarding. Surprisingly, the plane was not too full - I had an aisle seat with nobody next to me. Nice and comfy. I fell asleep, woke up enough for some scrumptious airline manicotti, and then slept some more. Before I knew it the little map on the screen showed us passing over Ireland. And then we landed, greeted by a foreboding sky and promises of showers from the captain. Having several hours to kill, I meandered over to my terminal and then went to gate 30 which was preparing to board for St. Petersburg. For some reason I thought that maybe the Moscow plane would leave from there. In any event, it was fairly quiet except for the large 40" plasma screen blaring the BBC news. I sorted through my documents and fought off sleep for a bit. Heard about the Scream theft and how a surprising amount of art in the world is not insured, or at least underinsured. Round about 11:30 am, I mosied on back down the terminal in search of a screen to check which gate my plane left from. About 1:10ish pm the screen flashed that my 1:20 plane had been delayed. We finally got off at about 2:30, maybe (my times are approximate as I do not have a watch; usually I use my cell phone as my timepiece, but since it has no service over here, I've not had it with me). Slept some more. Then a nice vegetarian meal. With beef in the vegetables. And a lovely noodle salad which upon further inspection turned out to be shrimp. The bread was bread, but not the most filling. It was really cool up above the clouds. I could see the moon for the whole flight pretty much. As we started our descent, the fluffy white clouds became a gray swirling mess. I don't know where exactly Domodedovo is in relation to the city, but I would guess on the outskirts because there didn't seem to be anything around.
In the passport control line there was a comical guy in front of me. His cell phone rang, so he answered it and was carrying on a lively discussion with Ivan somebody. Then his other cell phone (which was the exact same model) rang. He asked Ivan to hold on a minute and answered the other one. One phone next to his left ear and another six or seven inches from his right ear. This continued for a few minutes with one phone interrupting the other call. I cleared fine, picked up my baggage and exited through customs with no problems. The person meeting me grabbed one bag. His English was not so good, but he checked to see if I was okay and off we went. He has some nice Russian driving skills where nice translates to 140-160 kph. About 10:45 pm, I arrived and was shown to my room. Got to sleep a little past midnight and here I am. Lunch was served at 1 pm, and so I missed that but had some breakfast foods in my room. For the past few hours Sergei Zhadan, an employee of ADRA and the main person I've corresponded with via email, introduced me to some people in the office. He gave me a letter and copies of my passport so that I should be okay if I am stopped by the passport police while my passport is being registered. We then purchased a train ticket for me to travel to St. Petersburg this Thursday evening. After exchanging some money with him, I wrote this entry. And now I'm off to explore the surrounding area before it gets dark. The closest Metro stop is within walking distance. It is Shcholkovskaya and is the last one on what looks like the blue line on the metro map (in English). Now I must buy some food and then I'll probably return to read about different places in Moscow. I will be calling Alla, a friend of Anastasia's, later this evening and hopefully she will be able to show me some of Moscow. Ivan Ostrovsky was supposed to show me all over, but was called away to Belarus to fix some documents last Friday. So now I'll have to learn Russian. What a bummer. Well, I'll probably have time to access the internet again in a few days. This is just to let y'all know that I've arrived and am safe, so far.
Oh yeah, I also learned the word for birch in Russian. It is берёза.
I suppose it was 7:30 pm when I said my last goodbyes to my family and girlfriend at BWI airport. I then attempted to make it through security and had the most hassle of my trip. "Uhh, sir. Do you, uh, have an, uh, laptop in that bag?" "Yeah, what's it to ya?" "Dyaa, you're gonna need to, uh, take it, uh, out. My large, uh, x-ray-zapp-uh-your-laptop machine, uh, wants to see inside your bag..." And so on. Finally got through with the contents of my carry on backpack rearranged (with particular care taken to hide my spare underwear) and the top of my laptop scratched a little more than before. Thanks BWI security. On to my gate to wait for boarding. Surprisingly, the plane was not too full - I had an aisle seat with nobody next to me. Nice and comfy. I fell asleep, woke up enough for some scrumptious airline manicotti, and then slept some more. Before I knew it the little map on the screen showed us passing over Ireland. And then we landed, greeted by a foreboding sky and promises of showers from the captain. Having several hours to kill, I meandered over to my terminal and then went to gate 30 which was preparing to board for St. Petersburg. For some reason I thought that maybe the Moscow plane would leave from there. In any event, it was fairly quiet except for the large 40" plasma screen blaring the BBC news. I sorted through my documents and fought off sleep for a bit. Heard about the Scream theft and how a surprising amount of art in the world is not insured, or at least underinsured. Round about 11:30 am, I mosied on back down the terminal in search of a screen to check which gate my plane left from. About 1:10ish pm the screen flashed that my 1:20 plane had been delayed. We finally got off at about 2:30, maybe (my times are approximate as I do not have a watch; usually I use my cell phone as my timepiece, but since it has no service over here, I've not had it with me). Slept some more. Then a nice vegetarian meal. With beef in the vegetables. And a lovely noodle salad which upon further inspection turned out to be shrimp. The bread was bread, but not the most filling. It was really cool up above the clouds. I could see the moon for the whole flight pretty much. As we started our descent, the fluffy white clouds became a gray swirling mess. I don't know where exactly Domodedovo is in relation to the city, but I would guess on the outskirts because there didn't seem to be anything around.
In the passport control line there was a comical guy in front of me. His cell phone rang, so he answered it and was carrying on a lively discussion with Ivan somebody. Then his other cell phone (which was the exact same model) rang. He asked Ivan to hold on a minute and answered the other one. One phone next to his left ear and another six or seven inches from his right ear. This continued for a few minutes with one phone interrupting the other call. I cleared fine, picked up my baggage and exited through customs with no problems. The person meeting me grabbed one bag. His English was not so good, but he checked to see if I was okay and off we went. He has some nice Russian driving skills where nice translates to 140-160 kph. About 10:45 pm, I arrived and was shown to my room. Got to sleep a little past midnight and here I am. Lunch was served at 1 pm, and so I missed that but had some breakfast foods in my room. For the past few hours Sergei Zhadan, an employee of ADRA and the main person I've corresponded with via email, introduced me to some people in the office. He gave me a letter and copies of my passport so that I should be okay if I am stopped by the passport police while my passport is being registered. We then purchased a train ticket for me to travel to St. Petersburg this Thursday evening. After exchanging some money with him, I wrote this entry. And now I'm off to explore the surrounding area before it gets dark. The closest Metro stop is within walking distance. It is Shcholkovskaya and is the last one on what looks like the blue line on the metro map (in English). Now I must buy some food and then I'll probably return to read about different places in Moscow. I will be calling Alla, a friend of Anastasia's, later this evening and hopefully she will be able to show me some of Moscow. Ivan Ostrovsky was supposed to show me all over, but was called away to Belarus to fix some documents last Friday. So now I'll have to learn Russian. What a bummer. Well, I'll probably have time to access the internet again in a few days. This is just to let y'all know that I've arrived and am safe, so far.
Oh yeah, I also learned the word for birch in Russian. It is берёза.
posted by Troy on 17:20
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That worked. Cool!
Mr. Grammarian sez: The past tense of "mosey" is "moseyed". 8-)
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