Travel and First Day

Hello all!

The picture in the background is the view from my hotel room in Kaliningrad – Mother Russia, in all her glory.  And that glory is LOUD.  The Russians certainly do love their night life….long live Vodka.

I know many of you wanted to hear tales of Russia, so I created this blog – “From Russia With Love” – I just could resist.  Feel free to share it.  This is also, selfishly, for myself.  The older I get, the less detail I remember about ANYTHING.  Most days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast (mostly because I almost never eat it), so I thought writing down the more fun parts of my life would be a good mental exercise.  And good therapy.

And what would a blog by a Christ Church person be without our friend, PBJ?  That’s Plastic Baby Jesus, for all you newbies.  He’s small.  He’s plastic.  He fits in your pocket.  He’s ever present, just like the real one…

Chillin at the airport in Poland

We took him to dinner at the Winking Lizard in Peninsula the day before we left.  He loves those wings!

I was blessed with uneventful plane rides, however Newark Liberty Airport has just been added to my list of places I never want to fly through again.  Whose bright idea was it to make passengers go outside of security to get to another terminal?  This caused the obligatory run-through-the-airport-until-you-sweat-through-your-clothes event.  Of course, this time we were running OUTSIDE the airport because the air-train was closed…but all was well in the end.  I reminded myself what a privilege it was to be going somewhere so exotic, etc…and voilá, we get on the plane and get going.

My first flight was from Cleveland to Newark on good old Continental.  My remaining connections were on Lot Polish Airlines into Warsaw, then Kaliningrad.  I should have expected it, but didn’t – almost the entire passenger list to Warsaw was Polish.  So much for brushing up on my German!  They were a friendly bunch, and I didn’t even hear that screaming baby in the back of the plane after about 10 minutes or so.  One of the interesting things about flying on foreign airlines is sampling their plane food – trust me, it’s no better than ours…but the coffee was fantastic.  Learn, America, learn…

We land in Poland, and everyone breaks into applause as the wheels hit the ground.  We enter the airport and get into line to go through yet another security check before going to our connecting flights.  The TSA look like Boy Scouts compared to the fatigue wearing, army boot trodding, gun toting (BIG guns) Polish security.  Even the chic with the blond hair was fierce.  Sad to say, that was the only excitement of the Frederic Chopin International Airport (nice choice – Chopin was always one of my favorites to play).  2 hours to kill in a relatively small terminal.  I am also beginning to learn that Europe does not believe in free wifi.  Free internet for all, I say!

So, after several laps around the terminal (5 minutes each at an incredibly leisurely pace) we go through the gate to get the plane.  We go downstairs and outside to a tram waiting to take us to our plane.  Uh-oh, I thought to myself, envisioning a puddle-jumper of underwhelming proportions in my future.  But, I was happily surprised to get on a decent sized, newer plane. 

A short 50 minutes later and we’re in Russia!  The view from the plane as we descended was really quite lovely – you could see the bay as it emptied out into the Baltic.  Once we landed, we board another tram to get to the terminal.  I couldn’t resist taking this picture – doesn’t it have KGB written all over it???

                                           

 

Into the terminal we go to fill out our immigration forms.  I received a very thorough inspection from the immigration officer – I should have thought to wear my hair as it appears in the passport picture.  She spent quite a bit of time looking at my coif, or lack thereof…then, through the tiny airport to the baggage claim – only one belt here!  And the Russians have a strange custom of completely wrapping their checked bags in plastic…very bizarre.  Also strange that English seems to be the language of choice when addressing fellow Europeans from different countries.  A nice German man actually came up to me and asked me if I spoke English.  Ha!

While waiting for my suitcase I was met by my translator, Sergei Smirnov.  I couldn’t help laughing at the name.  Thankfully, he laughed too.  I felt like a celebrity – he came towards me with the beautiful competition booklet put together for the equation, which included my “glamour shot” and pointed to it, asking me if I was that person.  I only look like this once a year, I wanted to say.  

Sergei’s a charming chap who likes to do translator work to help his English.  He certainly was helpful to me – I speak or read no Russian at all, and I never would have made it to the hotel or to my room, for that matter.  The airport at Kaliningrad has a run-down mall feel to it – a couple of old stores, and no information booth to be found.  I was also pegged by an immigration officer.  She came up to Sergei and me and began asking him all sorts of questions about me.  She requested my passport, inspected it, and insisted on making a copy of it.  Sergei, ever the gracious host, told me not to worry and went with her while she copied it.  I suppose they’ll check to make sure I leave in 11 days…

We get to the hotel after a wild ride with our driver, who got all too close to every vehicle we rode behind and swerved through traffic like a madman.  I pretended not to notice.  The nice Soviet lady at the front desk checked us in, and without my realizing it, held onto my passport.  She was most reluctant to return it to me when I came back down to the desk, but did so after making a copy.  How many copies of my passport are out there now???

Sergei was a fantastic host – we walked around Kaliningrad while he showed me some useful places to shop, where to find free wifi, and other sites of the city.  It’s not the prettiest place in the world, but it definitely feels…Soviet.  Maybe after a few days I’ll be able to expound upon that a little more. 

 He left me at the hotel after the tour, and I rested up a bit before dinner.  Instead of venturing out, I decided to check out the outdoor café connected to the hotel.  The hostess spoke English (thank you Jesus) and the menu was in Russian but had pictures of everything (thank you Jesus again).  I asked about a few things on the menu.  There was a crock of something that looked like potatoes with some cheese on top.  She couldn’t find the English word for what was in it, but drew a picture of a mushroom and I thought, let’s just go for it.  It turned out not to be potatoes, but crepes filled with mushrooms and sauce.  Yummy.  I had 2 espressos that were FANTSTIC – thick, creamy, almost chocolatey…a coffee lover’s dream.  Really should have only had one, as I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest after the second.  But I got a good taste of the night time atmosphere here in the center of Kaliningrad.  Lots of young people with lots of energy.  I can hear them screaming outside my window right now…

So that’s the end of Day 1.  Tomorrow, off to work.  I get what will probably be my only practice time on the instrument for the first round, then I have to wait 6 DAYS before I touch it again…I think I feel ill…