Awkward but done

I have landed on my feet in Moscow, but it was not the smoothest of landings.

I felt a bit like a kid on Christmas when I got on the train in Warsaw.  I had a sleeper compartment all to myself, so lots of room.  I met several fellow passengers because everyone was standing in the passageway and at their doors.  Alexandra and a professor, both teachers at the University in Warsaw, were traveling only as far as Brest, which is in Belarus.  They are there for a week doing some research in their field of geology, although I never understood what exactly.  Philip, who is from Switzerland, was traveling to Moscow for an internship here.  He graduated recently with his bachelor's degree in Eastern European history. I've been reading Fermor's book about his travels in that part of the world, and he throws a lot of historical context into his writing.  Unfortunately I know so very little about it that I cannot discuss it intelligently.  We also talked about the European response to African immigrants, and the political situation in his country. As he expected, I had to admit I knew nothing about Swiss politics.  For my banking friends, he lives in Basel, which is of course where the Basel international banking agreements have been hammered out.

There was no food on the train, but you could get hot water for tea from the car attendant, and when we got to the Belarus/Polish border, some women came on board with large plastic shopping bags to sell bliny and beer. The undercarriage has to be changed there because the rail gauge is different from there east.  We didn't get out, they just raised the car and exchanged the wheels under us.

Border controls were all handled at the Poland/Belarus border and were a bit more involved, as anticipated.  Several people came along and asked questions, and luckily for me, I had a visitor sitting in my compartment at the time who spoke Russian. I had to remove my glasses so that the officer could compare the passport photo, and he asked me about my bags but did not search them.  He found it odd that I was going to Uzbekistan by such a circuitous route but in the end he let it go.

I burrowed in bed later listening to the sound of the train and watching the stars.  The bed was comfortable, and warm, and I half wanted to lie there and just soak it in rather than sleep.

The toilets are somewhere between clean and permanently stinking of urine, but it would be hard to have it otherwise, I think. Oddly enough, it had the first seat covers I have encountered so far on this trip.

Not long after boarding the train, I remembered that Russian that I was going to learn-yikes!  So I spent some time on it, and made myself some cards with common words.  The real difficulty is that the alphabet is different. There are some that are the same or similar enough to work with, such as M, A (ah sound) or O.  Others look the same but have different sounds: r is either a g or v sound, a backwards N is ee, p is r, and so on.  And there are about 15 characters that don't exist on our English keyboard.  Because the metro and most street signs, and directional signs are in the Russian lettering, I have to be able to parse them out.

This led to my first difficulty after leaving the train.  I found the metro station after crossing the street to the wrong side, so I crossed back, then went to get a ticket.  The woman at the counter and I communicated by using our fingers to show I wanted a one ride ticket-there were no signs in English, and there was a crowd, people coming and going.  I was a little overwhelmed, but got the ticket and headed down into the bowels of the earth.  I tried hard to figure out which train to take, but of course took the wrong one.  I knew I was to get off at the second stop, so I did that on the theory that if I had gone astray, I would not have gone too far. I saw an official looking person with a metro map in her hand, so I went to her and pointed to the station I wanted and she indicated I was to get back on the train and retrace my steps, then using her fingers to indicate walking up steps.  She said a lot of other things but I understood nothing except the name of the stop I was to get off at-Belarusky.  I decided to try.  Worst case, I would come out of the Metro and get a taxi, or so I figured.  I went back to Belarusky, got off and went up some steps, just dumbly following the people in front of me.  Turns out it led to another line, which also turned out to be the one I needed.

I found my street but then could not find the hotel. I circled and went back and forth, finally saw a tour business, and figured they would have someone who spoke English, and went in.  There was one woman who did speak a little, and she was very helpful.  She ended up calling the place, and then walked me around the corner, and told me to wait there, and someone would come in  minutes.  Hmmm. And so they did.

This 'hotel' is a converted flat, with several bedrooms and a shared bath. The proprietor was not here (hence the wait) and did not appear to be expecting me.  She made up a bed quickly while I waited.  Moscow's hotel prices average at some of the highest in the world, so I went pretty low budget.  I will try to suspend judgment for now.

So, here I am.  It is overcast and chilly (probably not to Moscovites), and I am off to explore and find some lunch.