Backtracking

Since so much happened since I had a chance to sit down and write anything, I’m going to attempt to dig back through a memory hazed by fatigue to fill in some of the blanks from Thursday to now…

The flight to Atlanta was completely non eventful. The flight to Moscow was a typical 10-hour flight – way too long to be sitting in one place, but balanced by the anticipation of what is waiting at the other end. I will say, though, Delta could learn a thing or two from Quantas. When we flew to New Zealand, the seats had special headrests that folded in on the sides, so you could lean your head against the rest if you didn’t have the window seat to lean against the wall. Quantas also gave us a little goody bag with a bunch of snacks, little socks, a sleep mask, all sorts of cool stuff. Nothing like that on Delta. I read almost all of Bad Twin, watched Rumor Has it, and listened to about 6 hours of Prior Bad Acts, a book I downloaded from audible.com and put on my MP3 player. So, not much sleep.

I was pretty beat by the time we hit the Moscow airport. We took a bus from one terminal to the other – which is miles away. Then, the great wait began. At least we were able to get chairs and tables in the outside lobby area. I’m very thankful that we’re spending the night in Moscow on our way back so we don’t have to endure another long layover. We couldn’t check in for the flight until 90 minutes b/f it left. When they called us, we headed over to go through security, such as it was. No pulling out your lap top and running it separately, no random bag checks, though I did still have to take my shoes off. This is also where the worry about the weight of the bags came into play. According to Bill’s information and the website, there was a 44 lb weight limit for both checked and carry on luggage. I’d tried and pulled out as much as I thought I could possibly live without for a month, but I was still at 38 lbs checked plus 18 lbs carry on – and only Mark had packed lighter than me. Bill was able to get us all processed through at once, though, and they only weighed our check bags. With some smooth negotiation, Bill put down 500 rubles to “pay for the overage” on all the bags, and we were good to go.

The flight to Irkutsk was rough. We’d already been up so long, and now we were in for a 6 hour flight on a much smaller, much older plane – that smelled. I decided not to even get out my MP3 player. I was basically sitting on top of the engine, so I hoped the endless drone would help put me to sleep. I put on my sleeping mask, then took it off, and must have fallen asleep, b/c the next time I opened my eyes, it had disappeared. (I was never able to find it, so I’ve been tying a scarf around my eyes to get better sleep since.) I was able to get a couple hours of sleep in on the flight. I already mentioned the Irkutsk airport – very different from anything I’ve seen stateside, and I’ve flown out of Tulsa and OKC. :)

Yesterday afternoon Vlad and his wife Marina took us on a walk down the river and to a Café for lunch. We all had sashleek, which was good, but not nearly as good as the sashleek Mark had at lunch today. We also went on a boat ride down the river. As it was like 80 degrees, the boat ride and wind off the river was quite refreshing.

After another short rest at the hotel, we went to the Bier Haus for dinner – locations in Munich, Dublin, Prague, Brussels and Irkutsk. Luckily, they had menus in both Russian and English, so I was able to pick out my own dinner – Fleischdorf (chicken salad with mushrooms, walnuts and pineapple) and Cheese and Garlic Toast, with Hoegaarden to drink. Mark got a flight of beers to try, and they brought about a dozen different kinds.

At about 10 p.m., Bill asked if we wanted to keep going or head back to the hotel. I was done – I knew if I stayed out any longer I would have been worthless today, and given that it was our first night and we have two weeks here, I threw in the towel. Tracy, Ora and Mark hung out in my room for about an hour, then cleared out and I hit the sack.

I’m sure I’ve missed many, many things – and I hope this isn’t too broad and sweeping. And, I hope once I get the pictures uploaded, I’ve provided enough detail that there is some sort of context.

My host family is preparing dinner, and Sasha is back now so we can all communicate through her, so I’m going to see if I can get this online.