A seat!

Well, I am sitting on the metro, around noon and I actually have a
seat. Riding the metro is a much more pleasant experience when this
happens, but I fully expect it to never happen again.

The reason I am riding the metro at this hour is due the extremely
sporadic life of the dude that I was going to go to the soccer game
with. He went out late last night and was still sleeping at noon, so I
decided to not wait for him anymore and I therefore took off to check
out some big WWII park on the outskirts of the city.

After spending about 5 hours checking out Victory Park, I can
difinitivley say that the Soviet Union did a damn impressive job in
building all if their monuments to The Great Patriotic war. Victory
park was a huge complex of museums and exhibits that is sprawling. I
have been to other museums in other countries, but none if them
approached this, and since the Russians lost some 25 million people,
it makes sense.

So I am again going through my nightly routine of showering and then
going to buy some beer (pivo) and drink with everyone at the hostel.

- The Dues

Closed!

I will say, that sitting in the hostel looking back on every day I
seem to forget the general levels of rudeness and unhappiness of
Muscovites. That is the great part about me being able to type
messages on the fly... I can have those things written down so I (god
help me) don't forget to complain about something.

Dealing with random Muscovites is something of a mystery to me. I can
sometimes stumble my way through some transaction and recieve a smile
afterwards; but most times it is the exact opposite. Sone random
thiights that I have noticed:
-Riding the metro during rush hour you will get bullrushed by feable
looking old ladies.
-Even after stating, in Russian, that you don't speak Russian, people
will insist that you will magically learn that instant and so they
continue to talk to you or ask question without any physical
indication as to what they are talking about. I like to think that I
am being complimented on my snazzy 'earth-toned' clothing.
-If you are waiting in line for something you will also get bullrushed
by old ladies, then they will just go to the front of the line after
they have decided that they have inflicted enough pain on enough people
-If something says that it is open, and it is not... do not ask
questions, no reason is needed, anyone can close anything they want at
any time and call it a technical break.

I toured the Kremlin in the rain, and when the sun finally popped out
I got some good pictures and then wanted to go into Red Square and get
a few sunny pictures, since I have not seen it in the sun before. But,
behold, about 30 military flag guys were practicing for the national
holiday parade on Monday...so they closed ALL of Red Square. No entry,
so I just bought some new sandles and now I am playing cards and
drinking with Swedes.

- The Dues

Something went right!

As is evident by this point of this blog, this first week of this trip has been a trying one. However, I am very happy to report that something actually worked as planned. There are several points in this trip that I am dependant upon meeting up with someone I have only spoken to via email from the other side of the planet, this is the first of those.

http://www.russiangirlfriday.com/ - Her name is Olesya - she is awesome. After having blind faith in Olesya and sending her money for procuring 3/5 of my train tickets, I actually received them. Anyone who may Google her looking for information and stumbles across this lowly blog of mine can be very confident in using her services. We met and she even went so far as showing me the important bits of information on the ticket.... and she gave me change, a totally unexpected turn of events that speaks volumes as to her professionalism. A big "thank you" and strong recommendation goes out to her and the service that she provides.

In other news... I have managed to lay together a plan that should allow me to keep occupied or inebriated in Moscow for 5 days (sometimes both at the same time).

Yesterday (day 1) was an art museum and sleep and checking into the hostel and a lot of walking and riding the metro and trying to get access to the free wifi in the hostel and then getting a bit inebriated at the hostels with a bunch of friends of one of the workers. It was his birthday that night and it was holloweeen and he had to work, so his friends through a party in the hostel... and most of them even spoke a bit of English. Lots of drinking with a lot of talking in alot of languages that I do not understand... and even a few 'friendly' wagers on some games of Foosball.

Today (day 2) was waking up expected late due to the cheap Russian beer, heading down to see Lenin, but I arrived too late. Then I went to large (1km x 2km) shrine/park dedicated to show off Soviet might and technical prowess (lots of pictures here... even though it was very overcast).... it is now just a glorified shopping mall... but the monuments and architecture is absolutely amazing. Also, I had some very interesting meat on a stick with onions that I believe to be beef, but I can not confirm that. Most people do not go here, but it should be on the top of everyones list while in Moscow... especially if you want to see a lot of hammer and sickle insignias on stuff. I could only imagine that during Soviet times that this place would make any Russian full of unbridled national pride, and likely still does that for many. I may have been the only non-Russian speaker in the entire place!

Shopping... what a grand experience... I both dread it and look forward to it.
I received a dysfunctional metro card (it was supposed to have 10 rides on it, but she forgot to activate it) today, and had to explain that to the attendant during rush hour... holding up the line a bit (after only 30 seconds of random Russian and English words and absolutely ridiculous gestures I was able to convey this information successfully).
Buying groceries every day that largely consists of items that i can only point at and in quantities less than or equal to 5 (fingers). There are no supermarkets that you can just walk around, pick stuff up, and then pay... you have to tell them what you want and then pay and then they give you the items.
My old leather sandals smell like rotten feet, so i am going to buy some new sandals tomorrow... that should be interesting because I will likely purchase them from a street vendor.
All of this has one thing in common... I have to give up all dignity to get my point across and I get an immense feeling of satisfaction after completing even the most menial of tasks. I walked away from the grocery store tonight thinking i was king of the world because I was able to successfully purchase iced tea, cheese, sausage, bread, and yogurt. I never feel that way when I leave Krogers or Walmart. Also, I am doing most of my shopping well out of the tourist areas (where prices are ridiculous, even my Moscow standards) and where English is EXTREMELY uncommon. The fact that doing even the simplest of tasks is rewarding makes the entire day more interesting because I am constantly getting a sense of accomplishment.

Even more good news, I just fixed the wireless Internet access for the hostel, and now I can use my iPhone again on a wireless network... so the next few updates should be more frequent and a bit more "real time". I was able to get into the router settings and add the MAC addresses of both my iPhone and some Latvian guys computer... so now we don't have to wait in line for the computer at the hostel... everything was in Russian, but a computer is a computer anywhere, and i was able to get my way around and get some shit done... they should let me stay for free, because they keep receiving complaints about the non-working wifi... and now they will not (and I made sure that me and Latvia guys computers will always get fast access).

A quick summary of what is likely to come.... Kremlin and armory tour, Lenins tomb, Soccer game (Russia v Chechnya... can anyone say 'tension filled atmosphere') on Sunday, and other random monuments and parks and onion domed churches and random street food.

Also (Mikey, Ween, Eli)... I have not been raped or robbed yet... if I do you will be the first to know (Mother Dues was concerned over those comments, so I felt I would address them publicly).

Ok, my beer is gone, so I must go to bed and prepare to waste more time in Moscow tomorrow.

-- The Dues

Moscow... Please entertain me

Well, there was no issue with me crossing the border. Apparently when you take a train from Minsk to Moscow they don't check passports. So now I have entered Russia twice and left once; and entered and left Belarus. All of this and I only have an entry stamp for each country. I am not sure what that all means, but I am sure I will get drilled with questions when I attempt to leave into Mongolia in about 20 days.

So... I arrived this morning, and will likely not do too much. Riding the Moscow metro at rush hour while wearing a backpack and many layers of clothes (the same layers I wore yesterday while running around Minsk) has left me smelling pretty ripe. When I can notice my own smell I know it is bad! I will likely just take a shower and ride the metro and check out some of the more oddball sights. This metro carries more passengers per day than the NYC and London systems combined.

I assume that I will do things like go to art museums and other such things that I have never been to yet tommorow. The Kremlin is closed Thursdays, so I will plan to do that on Friday. Then the next three days are up in the air... I will try to go to some of the sights in the suburbs and along the Golden Ring... but past that I have know idea how else to occupy myself in this city for more than 3 days... I suppose I could do nothing (and some laundry) for a day, since it is a vacation and those are supposed to be relaxing.

Well, this may get posted out of order, as the password that they have on the wireless network in the hostel is not working, and they don't seem to care so much.

- The Dues

In Moscow

Well,

 

I have a longer email created and ready to post, but I can not get the wireless network to work here... but I am in Moscow and my only problem is that I don't know what I will do here for this long... I will likely not do too much this first day other than shower and randomly walk around the city.

- The Dues

Dasvidania Belarus

Well, although the rest of the beginning week of my trip is messed up, I do think that I at least got to see all that I could see in Minsk without having a car. With the city bring so sprawling, some of the strange new sites (like the crazy looking new library... which I saw on the drive in at night).

As it turns out, most of the sights and monuments that I saw on my long walk the first day were about all that there was to see. In one word, war, you can describe all of them. Since Stalin rebuilt this city after it was destroyed, he put a huge war monument at nearly every major intersection. I spent some time just riding the metro and checking out various parts of the city... most all other sections are typical looking Russian square concrete box buildings.

Minsk was a very suprising city; all of the rumors would have you believe that it is some wasteland and KGB would be following you around the whole time. It was quite the opposite experience. The streets are cleaned almost constantly both by people and machines, the
parks are huge and fairly well maintained, there are cafe's and shops everywhere, and if there was anyone tracking my every move they did a damn good job hiding themselves. I am sure they were also constantly amused and confused by the obviously lost nature of finding my way
around the city.

As far as the visa situation is concerned, it is frustrating because it is really entirelly out of my control. I jumped through all of the hoops the past two months and had all of the paperwork completed to perfection. Now, it is all messed up due to flight delays and under- trained airport workers.

But, in trying to find something positive in all of this, I have all the confidence in the world in finding my way around my future destinations, because I had to learn a lot these past few days trying to work this visa situation out. I had expected these first few days to be tougher than the rest simply due to getting used to how to do things that are completely foreign to me, and it has been much tougher than I could have ever imagined...due to all of this visa crap.

The thing I am most looking forward to now is being in a hostel with other backpackers, and perhaps being able to have an actual conversation with someone that does not involve the validity of by travel documents. I got the last bed on some of the nights in the hostel, so there should be many backpackers there and it should be pretty fun.

So I am on my way to Moscow by train (11 hours) now (actually it leaves in 4 hours, but I am leaving now and headed to the train station), and assuming my visa is alright, my next updates should come from a hostel in Moscow for the next 5 days.

- The Dues

Who killed JFK?

Who killed JFK?, originally uploaded by ericdues.

I just thought that sounded like an interesting title. Above is a
picture (taken with my phone as usual) of the apartment block that Lee
Harvey Oswold lived in. There is no sign about it, but according to
the guidebooks and my driver when I arrived, this is it.

- The Dues

Another change

Well, it would appear that the ability to get a quick visa in Finland us only available to citizens of the EU (apparently only recently this change was made). So, I am now doing a more "classical" begining to my trans-Siberian trip (according to all of the guidebooks); I should have nothing left that I want to see on Moscow after this.

I am taking a train from Minsk to Moscow and staying at a youth hostel for 5 nights. I have always said that I wish I could spend more time in Moscow, because it us such an impressive city, and I guess I am now going to get that chance. I have talked to both my travel agent in Belarus and the people at the official government tourist agency, and both seem to think that I will be ok taking a train to Moscow from here.

Last time I was in Moscow I only stayed 1 day because there were no youth hostels in the city. Luckilly that has changed... There are many hostels now, and I found a pretty popular one with vacancy.

So, that us the new plan, if this works (and I have to believe it will), hopefully I can get on some sort normal schedule. I still can not believe the gigantic problem that missing a flight in Moscow has caused. I would have paid more (and it would have been cheaper and less time consuming at this point) to enter Belarus via train from Warsaw if I would have somehow known that this would have happened.

That is all... I will likely send another update from the wireless access in my hotel before I leave Minsk. After that, everything will be done from Moscow for the next 5 days... Either from wireless access or internet cafe's or hopefully a Internet station in my hostel.

- The Dues

New Plan, New Visa .. I hope

As it would turn out, Russia and Belarus have an agreement that they do not issue visas for foreigners... So my chances of doing anything with my visa here are none. I could stay in Minsk another 3 days then take a train to Moscow and stay in an expensive hotel there for a few
days, and nobody is quite sure if that is entirely legal... since I would then have two entry stamps on my Russian visa but no exit stamps... they really skrewed up my visa at the Moscow airport... Which is now officially the worst airport I have ever been too.

Well, a calculated risk is under way that will make or break my trip. My friend Hilkka in Helsinki found a company there that can have me a new visa by Friday (if I am at their office by noon on Wednesday)... Just in time for me to leave for Russia from Finland as planned. If this works, she is a goddess.

So, just next door to my hotel is the Air Baltic office, from whom I just purchased a flight that will have me in Helsinki by Tuesday evening. If all goes to plan in Helsinki, I will have the actual trans- Siberian portion of my trip intact... which is really the whole point
of this mess, this stuff in the beginning was just icing ok the cake.

I will update the the crazy visa situation when I know more details... I assume the cost will be expensive, but considering the sunk costs I have in train tickets from Helsinki, and the money i will save by having a place to stay for free for some extra days. The flight cost
is irrelevant. Essentially, the only extra cost will be for the new visa, which at this point I don't care about.

Worst case scenario #3, I can't get my visa in time, I am out the money I paid for trans-Siberian tickets, and I try to modify my air ticket to return home from Europe. All of my arrangements along the way were to be paid on arrival, so if that were to happen I would be
severely dissapointed... but oh well, I would then use my time to swing back through the baltics and head to somewhere like Lichtenstein and Portugul... all places I have never been to before. I really hope that it does not come to that though!

Off to explore the wet and overcast city the rest of the day, I fly out tommorow afternoon.

- The Dues

Minsk is huge

This is the view from my room in Minsk. This city is huge. After 90% of it was destroyed in the war, Stalin rebuilt it in his grand style, and it is definately more attractive than I expected. As you would expect, the Soviets built everything on a grand and sprawling scale, which always makes judging walking distancesba bit more difficult. I have already reserved another night in anticipation of me getting things sorted at the consulate tommorow.

I am dead tired after all the damn travelling, so I am just going to walk around aimelessly today for a few hours then come back to the hotel and do a lot of nothing.

I did not get a picture of it, bit on the drive in late last night Andrew, the driver, did point out the apartments that Lee Harvey lived in... This city, at first glance, seem very interesting and I do not think I will mind too much staying here a few extra days if I need too... As I will nor know for sure until after my visit to the Russian consulate tomorrow.

- The Dues

High Class with Low Self Esteem

Well, there is no more humbling experience than to be at the mercy of a Russian consulate.

I am typing this both from the business lounge at Moscow Terminal 1 and the business section of my Belavia flight to Minsk. I will have to say, caviar and wine on a flight are pretty sweet.

However, I know when I land that I will spend every waking (and probably many sleeping) moment trying to get a new Russian visa. I know it is possible in the States and in Scotland, but I am not so sure 24 hour processing with a faxed invitation letter is possible here.

However, the tour company I had pick me up from the airport and supply my necessary Bellorussian visa paperwork "BSP"... has agreed to help me with translating and explaining my situation to the Russian consulate on Monday. If they are able to help me get this done they are gods and I will forever be indebted to them. It turns out, that after I looked closely at my Minsk map, the Russian consulate is just down the street from me. The "BSP" people are going to go there with me Monday morning, and with any luck I may have another Russian visa by Tuesday... but luck has not been on my side thus far.

I will know more of the requirements after I look everything up on the web tonight. I think there is free wifi in my hotel lobby, right next to the casino/nightclub in my hotel.

................................

I am in the hotel now... And it costs a bit less than a trashy motel in the states, but is much nicer than a trashy motel.

Stay tuned for more updates, as I should know more about my messed up situation in the morning... I hope!

- The Dues

Oh the horror!

Oh the horror!, originally uploaded by ericdues.

I am sitting here in the Moscow airport (terminal 1 pictured above), which has the same name as the one I arrived late into, but Terminal 1 is actually a 20 minute bus ride away and only for domestic flights. So... I needed to go here, because even though I am flying to a different country (one that has had icey relations with Russia lately too) my flight departs from here.

I was well read on the subject, and even went to the correct desk to ask about this. They then looked at my ticket, with what I can only describe as a cross between astonishment and confusion, and directed me to go to customs (and I questioned their answer, but got the same response). After my 35 minute wait in line at customs, it took me 10 minutes to explain to a non-English speaking customs agent that I had arrived late from New York and was attempting to get on a different flight to Minsk that night. It was a very comedic and frustrating experience for both if us and everyone else that could see or hear us. She then took my customs form that I had filled out for Belarus and stamped my Russian visa... That detail could bust this whole trip, and I may be flying across Russia and into Mongolia. Now comes the 45 minute process of getting on a new flight to Minsk. First I was getting propositioned by a taxi driver... "Good deal...don't miss flight $100" ... in later talks with some random chick, it happens that the cab fare should be about $3 max. After that the process went something like this: - To the information booth that does not quite live up to its name - Walk around aimelessly trying to understand the instructions I was just given. - Take an elevator to floor 6 "airline offices"... Only to find some chick smoking a cigarette at the Lufstansa office that informed me that I should go to the Aeroflot ticket windows on floor 2 (which is where I started before the non-information booth) - Then, after a 10 minute wait due to the ticket lady being out for a few smokes, she informed me to go to an office in the opposite corner of that floor. - I walked by this place earlier, it is basically a small office cubicle in a dirty dark corner of the airport. One small sign had a number on it that I recognized the ticket lady said earlier... So I proceeded to wait in that line. - When it was my turn, I gave my ticket to an obviously unhappy man who, after 10 minutes of bickering with his co-worker, left... motioning for me to follow him. He had some sort of magic form in his hand... it took him a long time to fill out the little information on it. - We arrived at the ticket window I mentioned earlier, he slapped the desk three times after barging to the front of the line, and out came a ticket lady. Since the person who was at the front of the line was an Aeroflot employee, he gave her my form and old ticket and I think mumbled "business to Minsk". - After another 10 minutes a combination of 3 people gave me what I believe at this time is a ticket (it looks nothing like a ticket I have ever see) - I then proceeded to the Aeroflot transfer desk and got instruction and an irrelevant boarding pass for the bus from the young women working at the desk; they were obviously getting amusement out of my extreme degree if ineptitude. Now I have another 6 hour wait between flights and I will arrive in Minsk about 8 hours later than expected. Thankfully, due to the immense power and coolness of the iPhone I was able to confirm my hotel and a slightly more expensive transfer ($50 instead of $40... But now I avoid the hassle of bargaining with a cabbie at midnight in Minsk... The standard fare us $40) to the hotel via a series of 4 text messages. I also meet and talked with some Russian diplomat on the flight who had one that he uses while in the States... he is obviously cool.

It was supposed to be about 24 hours to Minsk(with all of the waiting) but it is now approaching 35. Now my thoughts are solely on my Russian visa. I am going to (hopefully) be able to stay in Minsk an extra day or two and try to pay some dumb amount of money for 24 hour visa processing of a new Russian visa. If that is not possible I may end up skipping straight to Finland and see off it is possible there. This messed up visa situation is pretty much a worst case scenaro, because it could cause me to miss Russia all together, which be a pretty un-authentic trans-Siberian trip. This next week is critical. I will likely send many updates at the same time, but I will be creating the next one as a new entery, so I can see how random and misguided my thought processes were through all of this. I will likely type my next update after I arrive in my hotel in Minsk... Or wherever I end up in the next 12 hours! I will never understand why I insist upon being a traveller, since nothing ever goes smoothly for me when I do it. But, typing all of this has both occupied my time and allowed me to see the humor in all of this. I often said that I expect there to be problems during this trip, and that is ok, because this trip is about the experience of really traveling outside your comfort zone; the destinations are just a way of quantifying the experience. - The Dues