Bad coffee, rude people, cars on the sidewalks, coffin-sized elevators, sandpaper toilet paper, metros like palaces... it's good to be back.My 24-hour flight went without major incident, except at the end when my Aeroflot plane landed safely, everyone in the cabin erupted in applause. Disconcerting to think that safe landings on Russia's national airline are extraordinary enough to warrant ovation, but glad I was on one that did.
My cab driver had a hell of a time finding my hotel because the numbers on that particular street didn't go in numeric order. When we finally found it, I asked for a room, and to me asking for a room at a hotel seems a pretty reasonable thing to do, but they acted like I'd asked them for half a ton of weapons grade plutonium; they didn't have it, and if they did I sure as hell wasn't getting it. So I dropped the name of Valeriy Kostin, the director of the program for Russia, and suddenly they couldn't help me fast enough. I took a cold sponge bath (no hot water and no shower curtain) and was asleep by midnight.
I'm the only American who bypassed an expensive ticket to New York and flew to Moscow a day early, so I spent the day alone. First I tried to find an exchange office, but the first one I went to, I followed the signs and they led to a dead end in a dark hall, and the second one I found was out of rubles. Go figure. Finally I got some cash exchanged and bought lunch at the hotel cafe, and they had this great menu, and I should have known better, but I got all excited about Borshch and Chicken Kiev, neither of which they actually had. I asked what they did have, and she pointed to the good ole pelmeni and said they also had shi, which wasn't on the menu. And I got mashed potatoes and tea, and it was lovely.
I spent the afternoon wandering around Prospekt Mira looking for an internet cafe but instead finding a little girl's dog. I saw two dogs running madly from something, or so I thought, dragging their leash, and later a little girl came by crying and asking if anyone had seen her dog. I thought it was too bad but not much I could do. A block and a half later I found two dogs with their leash trapped under the wheel of a parked car.
I had thought the dogs had gone the other way, so my first jet-lagged thought was, "What an interesting way to tie your dogs up... just run over their leash." Then I tried again and realized this was the girl's dog, and the offending grey poodle had chased it away and was now "attacking" it. It bit me a little when I tried to pull them apart (didn't break the skin, so I won't have to get another round of rabies shots), but finally I got the good dog loose, a little black and white sweetheart, and started walking back toward where I last saw the girl. She was nowhere to be found, but the dog knew what to do. She led me into a building and up some stairs and straight to an apartment door, and I tied her up there and left, hoping I'd done the right thing. Later I found the girl again, still crying, and she asked me if I'd seen a little black and white dog, and I led her to the apartment, which was hers, and she was so happy to see the dog, and I was glad I hadn't wasted the afternoon entirely. The rest of the time I was walking around I kept seeing that ridiculous little grey poodle strutting around like he was the pimp daddy of Prospekt Mira. Men.
There are some fluffy seeds of some kind blowing around like breezy snow under a warm blue sky, and seeing Red Square again was like going home in a way. I've been spending the evening with the British, New Zealand, and South African contingent (1500 Russians go to America every year with this program, and about 26 foreigners go to Russia), and the Americans will arrive late tonight. I'll be heading to the Black Sea in a couple of days with a South African girl who doesn't speak a word of Russian, so I'll have to help her out. I'd kinda hoped there'd be someone there who spoke better than me, but I'll just have to work harder in that respect, which is probably good. Speaking Russian still feels about as natural as walking down the street backwards in snowshoes, but I'm already feeling better about it and will be fine in no time.
I'm not the biggest fan of mass emails, but I won't have time for much more, and if you want to keep getting them from me, write back. Otherwise I'll not put your name on the new list and you won't have to hear from me again.
Love always,
Pam