The Trip to Moscow - Journal Entry #1

(Note: I use the phrase “very interesting experience” repeatedly throughout this journal – I have not edited or varied this phrase post-trip, as I have tried to keep the journal as close to my original thoughts and ideas as possible. Some additions and changes were made, but very few and most are noted. Also note – the dates are the days the journal entry was written, not necessarily the day of the events.)

Sunday, July 30

I’m not really sure where to start – the past couple of days have been a whirlwind. Except for those nine hours in Heathrow, but I’ll get to that. So far I think I’ve been really lucky and have had good omens all the way. First the day I left SF I won a year’s supply of Ben and Jerry’s – not too shabby. The plane was late leaving SF to London, but made up the time in the air – and for me it didn’t matter anyway what with those 9 hours and all.

On the plane I had an aisle seat with no one next to me. There were 2 women on the other side of that seat and neither of them were talkers – which was fine by me. I watched a movie called “Brick” with Joseph Gordon Levitt (or whatever – the 3^rd Rock from the Sun kid) and the kid from Witness. Not sure I’ve seen him in anything as an adult till now, but I liked him. Oh the Claire girl from Lost was also in it playing a chick named Em. So that was fun. I think I’ll have to rent it though when I get home – the plane’s earphones sucked and I’m sure I missed half the lines. Anyway plenty of room to spread out and a good movie. Good food too – a chicken stir fry and white wine – free. British Airways rocks. So then I watched the Bourne Supremacy and dozed through most of it – that was my plan – it was the only movie I’d seen on the list so I thought it’d be good to put me to sleep – meaning I didn’t feel that I had to listen to all the lines.

The only negative was during “Brick” these two Scotch-maybe guys came up to the emergency exit door (which was in the row behind me – I was in the last row of the front section) and started talking to each other really loudly – one even left to bring back drinks. The guy across the aisle from me told them to be quiet by to no avail. Finally with no end to their yelling in sight, a man from the front row of our section asked a flight attendant to tell them to move. Their complaint was that they weren’t sitting next to each other so how were they going to talk to teach other?! I couldn’t believe that – people all around them are trying to sleep and they were completely clueless and intended to keep on talking/shouting throughout the entire overnight flight. Anyway they were moved and the rest of the flight was relatively silent – especially since all I could hear was the screeching tires, gunshots and fast talking of the Bourne Supremacy. Karl Urban speaking Russian – yum.

So the rest of that flight was uneventful. More food in the morning (not that long really after dinner) which I kept for later rather than eat. And I’m glad I did. So we landed in London and my long day at Heathrow started.

I went to the appropriate desk to check in for the transfer flight – the woman looked at my ticket with a shocked/perplexed expression and told me to come back in an hour. Great. I wandered around, went to the bathroom to clean up a little (my teeth felt disgusting) wandered around a little more (saw a Burger King and Terminal One’s departure lounge, AKA mall) and made my way back to the check-in desk. I sat in a chair in that waiting area (b/c I was still earlier than an hour later) in front of a big AC fan. Did I mention the airport was sweltering? I don’t know who designed it but they didn’t do a very good job when it comes to temperature. I can’t imagine it’s cold even in the winter. Anyway, after sitting there for a while, cooling down and drying off, I went back to the desk. A different person was there and I was able to check in – but only after making a fool of myself b/c I couldn’t understand the word package or something when he was asking me about my luggage. He didn’t use the word luggage or baggage though so with his accent (which I think was Russian – definitely Eastern European of some kind) I completely couldn’t understand him and had to ask him to repeat it like 4 times. I thought, as I walked away, “Great, if I can’t even understand a Russian when they’re speaking English, what will it be like when I get to Russia?” It wasn’t an encouraging though and I felt like an idiot.

After that I did a lot of sitting and walking and standing around. With a backpack weighing 30-40 pounds, I wasn’t eager to be on my feet all day so I primarily sat. But then my butt and tailbone hurt so I’d get up and walk around but then my feet would hurt… you get the idea. It’s amazing how long it takes 9 hours to go by – and then when you’re down to like only 3 you think to yourself, “Not much longer now!”

I ate dinner at this sandwich/coffee place in Terminal 2 (where I went after getting my boarding pass and from which my plane was leaving). I had a grilled chicken-caesar-salad sandwich and apple juice. While paying I got to overhear one woman who worked there reveal to the other that she was newly pregnant. I felt happy for her even though I knew nothing about her. Then I sat for a while and read through my Russian phrase book – I love the James Bond ones. I also loved sitting in the terminal 2 mall AKA departure lounge and listening to the dozens of accents and languages around me. It’s really incredible and kind of alleviated my fear about traveling somewhere where I don’t know the language. If people only traveled to places where they could speak the native language fluently, most of us would never leave home, and what kind of world would that be? So with a more peaceful feeling inside of me, I sat and waited and walked around and waited again.

The other strange thing about Heathrow’s Terminal 2 besides being sweltering and a mall, is that only the flights for the next couple of hours are listed on the departure monitors and only those leaving in less than 40 minutes have the gate information – maybe typical for international airports, but something I had never experienced. So I didn’t even have any knowledge of my flight until maybe 8 o’clock – and then only that it existed. Also, by then the mall had begun to empty and as the flights kept being moved up the screen and nothing was appearing underneath “Moscow” I understood – mine was the last one leaving for the day. 9 hours really is a long time.

As the people dwindled away I also finally began to hear some Russian – something I had been listening for the whole day. A couple young guys and a girl sat a few rows over from me to wait. I knew instantly upon seeing them that they were Russian – even before hearing them speak. After trying to catch words and phrases that I knew I got up to walk around again. I ended up in a bookstore thumbing through a book on the historic torture and execution of women. It was actually really cool and right up my alley. If I had had an ounce of space left in my bag I would have bought it.

Monday, July 31

After leaving the bookshop I saw that the Moscow flight finally had a gate – Gate 13, perfect for a flight to Russia (NOTE: 13 is often used by Russian hockey players, including Slava Kozlov) – and those who were left were collecting their things and proceeding down the hall toward it. When I got to Gate 13 I saw why it would have been pointless to get there any earlier than when the plane was starting to board. Passengers were actually checked in when entering the room that held Gate 13 and then had to sit in the waiting area there – no bathrooms and no mall. I then thought how clever it is of Heathrow to force people to wait in the departure lounge, surrounded by shopping temptation rather than allow passengers to wait by their gate where all they might do is read.

As I was checked in, I had another good omen. I assume it was because I was probably the first person who got a boarding pass, due to the fact that I was 9 hours early, but I had been upgraded to a business class seat – in row 6. A few others were also upgraded – there must have been quite a few empty business class seats – something I’ve never seen happen on a flight in the States.

After sitting for a while at Gate 13, watching my fellow passengers shuffle in, I began to get the feeling that I was the only non-Russian on the flight. It was the first time I had felt isolated from those around me. It turns out I wasn’t – there was a whole troop of British girls that seemed to be going to some competition – but I only saw them briefly.

I boarded the plane and took my seat, curious to see who I would be next to and hoping it wasn’t someone scary. After watching people go by for a while, the three young people I had seen in the departure lounge came aboard and proceeded to decide which of them had to sit next to me and which would sit in the two seats across the aisle. The black-haired guy eventually took the aisle seat by mine. We exchanged a smile. Then all the announcements began over the intercom – first in Russian, then haltingly in English. This was it. I was leaving English speaking ground and heading for someplace different.

The guys next to me had brought a bottle of Seagram’s 12 (or something?) no doubt purchased duty free in the terminal 2 mall, and I began to worry – not only that they might be loud, obnoxious and drunk, but that they might offer me some. I was relieved when neither happened – Russian men can, yes, apparently hold their liquor. While aboard I had my first Russian meal consisting of grapes, other mixed fruit in a cup, a hot mixture of spinach, cheese, fish and mushrooms and a small custard pastry topped with peaches. It was all actually quite good. Realizing that this was the business class meal, I wondered what kind of fare the coach passengers were receiving.

The flight was fairly uneventful until I asked the stewardess – a model of Russian stoicism – about the form I was supposed to fill out for customs. She retrieved one for me and was trying to find the instructions in the on-flight magazine when she finally gave up and asked the guy sitting next to me to explain it. By this time the dark haired and light haired Russian guys had switched seats and had finished the bottle of whiskey. The dark haired guy was now sitting with the girl and they were watching some Russian variety show on his laptop. The light haired guy (I really wish I had gotten their names) tried his best to help me read the all-Russian form, but either his lack of English or the whiskey was getting in the way. He kept asking the girl’s help until finally he convinced her to switch seats with him. She had not partaken of the whiskey, so I wasn’t sure if it was that or her superior English skills that made her more fluent. She was very pleased to hear I was from the US – and even more so that I was from the SF Bay Area in California (she first guessed Texas and I almost gagged) - she said she had many friends in the area.

With her help I finished the form and they returned to their prior seats. The guy proceeded to fall asleep and continued to slowly slump down in his chair. By the time we were nearing Moscow he had his legs crossed over into my leg area and his head was mere inches from my shoulder. I realized that if this had been someone else I would have minded, but either his age or his Russianness made me feel very at peace with his encroachment. His friends thought it was so funny they took a picture of us. I suddenly saw an orange light coming from their direction, turned, realized it was a photo about to be taken, and smiled. I hope he enjoyed this photo of himself practically in the lap of an American.

We landed in Moscow and deboarded the plane. My fears about the airport and getting out of it were unfounded – at least at 5 in the morning. There were very orderly lines to go through passport control and even a shelf on the back wall with information on how to fill out the form I had completed. Even though I now could have done it on my own, I was glad it had given the Russians on the plane a reason to talk to me.

In line at passport control a middle-aged man saw my US passport and asked me for help filling out his form, including loaning him my pen. It turned out he was German, but spoke English fluently, and was pretty much as clueless as I was, if not more so. We chatted for a while about why we were there and how we both hoped there were no problems with our forms, etc. We finally got through passport control, with no problems or even a word from the woman doing the stamping, and went our separate ways. My bag was patiently waiting for me as soon as I stepped through the passport control gate – the only one going around the second conveyor belt. I retrieved it and headed for the exit.

Now our plane had arrived early and it was only now just 5:45 (when the plane was supposed to land) so I was worried that the driver would not yet be there to pick me up, but after having to only say no to one proposition for a taxi, I spotted a shortish man (meaning about my height) with a sign reading “EMILY KLOKKEVOLD.” I approached him, made some gesture that it was me, gave him my bag to pull when he reached for it and followed him outside to his waiting car. The air was only a little chilly and the sun was just beginning to rise. I got in the front seat next to him and we were off.

It became very clear that he knew little to no English and that I didn’t know much Russian (he asked me which hotel – apparently there are 3 with the same name and are A, B, or C – I was at Beta) so our drive was very quiet. He flipped on the radio and we listened to Russian pop music on the way into town. At one pint I was reminded by the radio of 107.7 back home – same sounding intros – and I smiled. During the drive I got to see the sun rise over Moscow – beautiful. I was smiling practically the entire drive; everything was now jjust how it should have been. I felt completely out of place and yet also strangely at home.