bearshorty | Entries tagged with moscow

Today was a really really long day. 31 hours with time change overall. And, on top of that, I barely slept the night before. We got up at 3am and were ready pretty quickly to drive to the airport in two cars. I drove to airport with Sasha, we managed to fit all the luggage in his car, while my parents and my uncle went in my aunt’s car. The drive to the airport was my favorite time with Sasha in the whole two weeks, since we just chatted by ourselves for more than an hour.

We got to the airport way too early and had to wait awhile. It was very cold in the morning, I’m glad I had on my leather jacket. Finally, an hour before boarding, the registration opened. They couldn’t find Mama’s and mine ticket, they had only Papa’s, so we had to go to ticket counter to sort that out. Thankfully, that didn’t take long. We said goodbye to everyone and waited to go on the little bus to get us on the tarmac. The one hour plane ride to Moscow was really easy. And the landing was nice and soft. I was occupying myself my reading National Geographic I bought in New York – I read two articles from the May issue while in the airport and on the planes: an article on China-Tibet Tea Horse Road , and the Science of Sleep . I liked seeing the difference in sleep patterns between children, teenagers, adults and old people.

In Moscow, since flight from Minsk is considered a local flight due to special arrangement with Belarus, there were no customs or paper checking whatsoever. There wasn’t much on leaving Minsk either, I didn’t get a stamp in the passport that I was leaving Belarus. It reminded me of when I took the Eurostar from London to Paris and discovered upon arrival in Paris, that no one cares and we could just go anywhere. We took a local bus to Seremetevo 2 airport (international flights) and meet some traveling companions who also came from Minsk and were going to New York to visit their daughter. One had to have Russian money to take the bus, thankfully, Papa got some the day before.

We spent four hours at the airport: getting something to eat, shopping for some Moscow souvenirs, then going through security. The initial security near the registration was annoying because of lines that didn’t seem to go in order, and then we all had to go through body scanner – my first, which was a weird experience. It didn’t feel like invasion of privacy at all, just a bewildering thing to go through. Then we did a bit more shopping, I actually got some perfume. And then they blocked off our gate and did a hand search of persons and carry-ons for all travelers heading to New York. They said it was standard to planes heading to America.

Finally we got on the plane to spend ten hours in the air – that was a really long time especially since the movies were crappy. I watched one Russian comedy that was funny, at least. I can’t read that much on the plane. They fed us twice. Still, ten hours is a long time to just sit there. I wonder what the pilots do at that time. There was a long circling descent into JFK that lasted at least 20 minutes if not half an hour, and we arrived on time for our landing. Still we had to wait. On the entertainment system, in front of each seat, they turned on a camera to show where we were, and that actually made the circling seem worse. Finally, we landed and then had to wait some more for a slow taxi into our gate. The crew had to tell several times for people to take their seat since we were just stopping but not at the gate yet. After ten hours of sitting down, most people just wanted to go. I called Bear to tell him we landed but that it might take a while – he was waiting by his car in the parking lot. At least there was a quick turn around at the actual airport; it is good to be a US citizen – no fingerprinting and no picture taking. The luggage also came quickly.

Bear picked us up in his Mom’s SUV that had plenty of space for all the luggage. My ears can’t hear after I’ve been on the plane, so arriving is always a surreal experience. Plus I’ve been awake for almost 24 hours at this point, which is a little like being drunk. And first thing you feel upon arrival in New York in the summer is the humidity. We went from chilly whether to 80+ degrees with humidity. The trip home was pretty fast.

As soon as the luggage was inside Bear and I drove to get Chinese food for him (I wasn’t hungry and only took a bit of his chicken) and did a little mini shopping while we waited to pick up the food. All of this while really sleepy, tired and stuffed up ears.

We did a bit of unpacking after we got home and ate and I was showing some Minsk stuff to Bear, including giving him his presents. Mostly I was trying to stay awake so I could try to go to sleep at normal time; I went to sleep at 10pm after 26 hours of being awake – I could not keep my eyes open. Flying this time wasn’t as bad, though.

I listened to some music on the plane, read “Time,” watched a couple of Russian cartoons. They gave us breakfast in the middle of what is a NY night – but I’m adjusting my thinking to adopt to seven hour time change and eating helps, I hope, with jetlag. Or maybe it is the opposite. The landing was a bit rough (my ears hurt), but finally we landed 1:40 local time in Moscow – one hour late. That left two hours to make our connection. The connection was in a different section of the airport about 15 minute-ride away and we had to pick up our luggage first too. So two hours was not a lot of time. And if we missed this connection we would have to wait for many, many hours. This was an adventure. We thought for sure we wouldn’t make it.

But as we got to passport control, a woman called everyone for connection to Minsk to come forward in the line. We got hope that they would wait for us since it appeared there we many people in our situation.

But then waiting for baggage took forever. There was some sort of technical difficulty and again we weren’t sure if we’d make it. The woman was waiting, anxiously, for 10 people, she said. Finally, the bags came and we made our way to a transit bus waiting for us to take us to Terminal B. By that point there were seven of us traveling together. My parents, myself, my Mom’s friend and three others,

We rushed through security five minutes before the plane was supposed to leave (and we got bit of a pat down and questions about what was in the bags to our frustration) and found that the flight was indeed held for us. The drove us on a little shuttle bus into the field and we boarded the plane. We even waited in the plane a bit before taking off around 4pm local time.

When you fly, it feels like forever. I’m so much in the present moment. It is a weird sensation. At least it was a normal one hour flight (and with one hour time difference we arrived in Minsk at the same time we left Moscow).

The grass in Moscow airports was such a Russian grass – my heart was filled with gladness about it. I’m very much American now but a piece of my soul, if I can resort to such a cliché, is still Russian.

Short customs and fast luggage collection and then we were hugging Aunt Vera and Uncle Tolya who picked us up in a van. Driving on the highway into the city I kept looking at our flat Belarusian land with many trees.

First impressions: A lot of new construction with buildings painted in bright colors. I forgot how spacious the streets are. I didn’t recognize a lot because of all new buildings.

Sasha was at home and it was great to see him. (He is Aunt Vera’s and Uncle Tolya’s younger child, and he is six month older than me. We grew up together. Aunt Vera is my Mom’s sister.) We had some food. Mama unpacked and gave everyone their presents.

Since there isn’t hot water at my Aunt’s apartment right now (periodically the city shuts down hot water for maybe two weeks to test the pipes, which threw us right into ‘nostalgia’ phase), Sasha drove us to the apartment he is staying in for the next two weeks – he lives with my Aunt and Uncle but my parents are in that room now, I’m in the living room on a new foldable couch (my relatives have nice new furniture and new renovations on their apartment, it looks really nice) – so that we could take a nice hot shower after the plane. It was a great shower.

When Sasha drove us back, he drove us to our old apartment building – no renovations there yet, they are just beginning, it looks really old and run down.

my apartment building