Moscow - Day 1 - Meet Katherine!!

St Basil's Cathedral and the Gum Department Store

Red Square, Moscow

Saturday, 13 August 2011

I am so glad I did this.

Funny enough, I was on the same plane from Hong Kong to Moscow as I'd been on from Auckland to Hong Kong.  Like, literally the same.  It had this horrible clunk that woke everybody up when one of the wheel bays opened, and a very strange noise when one of the wheel brakes engaged.  I figured that it was loud enough that the pilots must have known it was happening, and that they must have checked the brakes over and been convinced that they were operating effectively.  But I was still VERY nervous when we landed.

However.  We made it to the terminal safely.  And in immigration they barely even looked at me or my passport, all they did was scan the photo page and my visa, print out whatever bit of paper I need, give me back my passport, and look over my shoulder for the next person.  I was expecting far more drama than that, given how difficult they make it to get a visa in the first place.

I flew into Moscow Domodedovo Airport, and I was expecting something pretty huge and fancy.  It looks like a local airport that extended the runway a couple of times and put in an immigration booth.  It was really difficult to figure out which line was for visitors and which for citizens.  The baggage was very slow to get from the plane to the carousel, but to be fair they did land five or six planes in about twenty minutes.  We were half an hour or so early, and I'd arranged for the tour company to pick me up from the airport, so I wandered out into the arrivals hall and tried (unsuccessfully) to find somewhere to sit.  When the driver arrived, I saw him straight away and went over to him, only to find he was Russian and didn't speak a word of English.  He did however have the name of the tour company, my name, and the names of two other people from my tour that he was picking up from the same flight.  So we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Three more flights landed.  We waited.  45 minutes later, a couple who both had white hair walked over to us and introduced themselves as Sue and Hugh (memorably).  I was surprised because I was expecting it to be like my tour in the Middle East, which was with the same company - everybody was my age.

Sue and Hugh are AWESOME.  We were chatting as we walked out to the van, and they're from Khandallah in Wellington, which is only like two suburbs away from where I was living in Thorndon. 

We got on really well right away.   It was about an hour drive to the hotel, right through the suburbs of Moscow, and we were all just open-mouthed and staring out the window the whole way into the city.  The suburbs consist of miles and miles and miles and miles of huge apartment blocks, which all look the same, and are all fairly run down on the outside.  What really amazed us was that even after we drove for half an hour past apartment blocks as far as the eye could see, they were building tower after tower of new apartments.  I was so absorbed in looking out the window that I didn't even take any photos.

So we arrived at the hotel at 9am and eventually managed to get one of the eight staff at the reception desk to pay some attention to us, and they actually let us check in and go to our rooms right away, which was great because I'd slept for a grand total of about two and a half hours on the plane, and we'd lost four or five hours, so I was feeling pretty grotty and awful.  I was expecting that I was really early and that my roommate would arrive after me, but when I got to the room she was there already - Katherine from Canberra.  She was feeling a bit homesick, and I was pretty nervous about going out into Moscow on my own, so we joined forces and went out together.

We managed to figure out the metro together and get ourselves to town.  We were heading for Red Square but the metro came out somewhere slightly more random and we weren't sure which direction we needed to go.  So we wandered for a bit, and we eventually did get there.  The buildings around Red Square are all amazing anyway.

The roads are of course crazy, as you would expect in a city this size, so we spend lots of time using predestrian subways, which are actually really awesome.  They usually have lots of tiny shops in them.  There was one I found on my last day in Moscow which had art stalls from one end to the other.  This is what they're normally like:

We evenually made it to the side of St Basil's, which is just as weird in the flesh as in photos.
 

We wandered round Red Square for a while, went and had some lunch, decided to head for home, Katherine led us off in the wrong direction, I sorted us out, we got the metro back to the hotel, and we both totally crashed out by 2pm. We got up at about 4pm, because we figured we'd be meeting about 5pm with the tour leader and the rest of our group.  We'd been instructed to look for a notice in the lobby, but we couldn't find anything all day.  We got down there and met up with Hugh and Sue, and there were three other older people standing around who we eventually started talking to...  who were also on our tour.  Colin and his wife Jane (Aussies), and Jane's friend Pat (Kiwi).  Katherine and I were starting to look at each other and at the rest of the group and back at each other.  We were both the same, we'd expected it to be all 20- or 30-somethings.

We eventually got it sorted and everybody met at 6pm.  As well as Tony our Tour Leader, who's Canadian and in his mid-thirties and been tour leading for ages, there was only one single guy, Adrian (Aussie), who I would've said was mid-thirties.  There were Denise and Jason, our resident Canadians.  There was another Aussie couple, Peter and Janette, who are on a six month trip around the world.  There were Ian and Julie, a British couple, who are only with us as far as Poland and who are incredibly well-travelled.  And the last to arrive were Amanda and Steve, more Aussies and the youngest couple on the tour, who are also one a six month trip.  We did the "say your name, where you're from, and one thing we don't know about you".  I said "I'm Laura, I'm from NZ, and I quit my job to travel".  Katherine said "I'm Katherine, I'm from Canberra, and I'm a band geek...  I play euphonium".  You must be kidding me.  We'd already worked out that we are really alike in sense of humour.

We (whenever I say "we" just assume it's me and Katherine.  Even by the time we had the first meeting at the end of the first day, everybody thought we'd been friends for years) went for dinner with Hugh and Sue, who even by then we'd pretty much adopted, and the Canadians, Jason and Denise.  We sat outside and it was light until about 10pm.  As soon as we'd finished dinner we all had to go home and have a biiiiiiiig sleep, ready for day two.....

ONE MORE SLEEP!!

This is how I feel about how it's only ONE MORE SLEEP til I leave... 

and only FOUR MORE SLEEPS (or something) til I get to Russia!!

Tuesday, 9 August 2011

I do look kind of undead-slash-serial-killer here...  I was going for something more like mixed shock and excitement.  I'm told that I have an expressive face, but somehow when I try to show a particular emotion it doesn't tend to work out so well.  Ah well, there had to be something I wasn't good at.

Rowing Times

Saturday 6 and Tuesday 9 August 2011

On the weekend, Mum's rowing crew (St George Masters W4x) came to Rotorua and joined the Masters from there and from Tauranga Bay of Plenty Club for a rowing camp.  They invited me as well.  It was a great weekend.  Everybody mixed clubs and crews and rowed together.  My first row was with two men from Tauranga BOP and one lady from Rotorua - see the top photo, that's me third from the left in that tiny wee far away boat.  Wellington rowers will be pleased to know that I always row in my Wellington Club hat.  We had another row on Saturday morning, when I went out with Mum and Stew and another of the men from their club, and then on Sunday we tried again, somewhat less successfully because the weather Really Packed Up.  It was so much fun, everybody was really friendly and the hospitality shown by the Rotorua Masters was amazing.

As we were leaving on Sunday, one of Mum's crew mates invited me to come for a row on Tuesday (today) in Auckland with them, which was really nice, and my stepdad Stew offered to take a double out with me, so that's the haps in the second photo.  I thought we had a pretty good row!

Aside from that, there's been much lying around the house and sleeping and eating chocolate and pretending to help Mum with all her work but not really achieving much.  I must be unwinding, I've been sleeping so early and so hard every night, and waking up is like coming out of a coma.

By this time tomorrow, I will have been in the air for three and a half hours, everything going to plan...  Which will mean that I'm quarter of the way to Hong Kong!  I'm looking forward to Hong Kong, that should be fun for a few days.  I like to be very organised when I travel, so I already know exactly how I'm getting from the airport into town (the Airport Express train), how much it costs (HK$90 - not as expensive as it sounds!), where I'm staying (Regal Oriental Hotel), I've found it on the map, and I know how I'm getting from the train stop to the hotel (taxi).  I really hope they give us dinner on the plane, I do not want to be dealing with that at 10.30pm when I get to the hotel!

So, tomorrow at 10am, to the aiport!

CHARLEY TIME!

Less than a month until I finish at work.  And only 39 days until I fly out.  This shit just got real.

I got my Russian visa!  Woohooooo!!!  I picked it up on Thursday morning, and it was a much less intimidating experience than when I dropped it off.  Now I can stop worrying that I'm going to have to change my entire itinerary and all my flights because of that visa, and start worrying about the ash cloud.  What a relief! 

I thought about posting a photo of my brand new Russian Tourist Visa in my brand new passport, but I wasn't sure that either country would've been too happy about that.  So you'll just have to believe me that it's bright and shiny and red and mostly indecipherable.  Must start learning some Russian.  At least enough to get me through the airport on the small chance that they don't have at least a few staff who speak English.

Hugh is doing well, learning the ropes to take over from me when I leave.   He now has roster writing down to about a 5 hour mission, including the two of us looking at it together for an hour and a half.  I remember those days...  such frustration! 

So much still to do before I go overseas.  Every time I cross one thing off the list, I add something else to it!  I had a really big think and chose one of my staff who I know loves me to bits (she's the only one I've kept in touch with since she's left Kaffee Eis), and who's now studying management at Waikato, and asked her to write me a reference.  That was another one of those learning curves, figuring out how to explain to her how to write a reference without telling her what to say!  I know you usually get references from your superiors, and I'll do that as well, but if I was hiring a manager I'd be just as interested to know the thoughts of the staff who had reported to that person in the past.  And I've written my formal resignation letter to Karl, which is currently a page and a half long.  Might edit that a little before I give it to him!  When I thought back over the almost six years I've worked for him, I suddenly had plenty to say.  And I've drafted one for Christine, but I haven't got anywhere near finishing it yet.  I also got all the forms filled in to get my driver's licence renewed (it's due to expire in April of next year and I have to be in the country to do it); started the process to get a Visa card and now just have to collect ten tonne of paperwork to prove that I do currently earn money and have some idea of how to manage it; signed the letter from MasterCard offering me an extention on the limit on that card but am still deciding whether to return it; booked a flight to Greece from Istanbul to meet Charley for a week at the end of my tour!! (Charley is from the UK and came to NZ for six months on a work exchangey thing over summer, and rowed with my crew for the time she was here); photographed my stereo with the intention of listing it on TradeMe to sell it; and went to the travel agent to book accommodation in Hong Kong and a flight from Greece to Canada - but she wasn't in so I'll have to go back.

For those who don't know, my plans (dates are very vague at this stage) -

29 July - Finish at Kaffee Eis
30 July - Some kind of leaving do (will make details known when I figure out what I want to do!)
3 Aug - Goodbye Wellington   :-(
10 Aug - Goodbye NZ!!  Hello Hong Kong!
13 Aug - Midnight Flight Delight from Hong Kong to Moscow...  And TOUR DAY!!  You can see my tour itinerary on the company's website:  http://www.tucantravel.com/tour/overview/eastern-europe-discovery/eeed
8 Oct - My birthday!  Tour ends, fly to Greece, YAY CHARLEY TIME!
16 Oct - Fly to my new home in Caaaaanada.... 

I'm really excited!  And now I have to go and try to get to sleep.  I don't really see this working out for me.

Ruminations on Role Reassignment and Russian Visa Requests

Another 10 days closer to leaving.  It's starting to feel a little more real now.  Not a lot, but a little.

The staff meeting was definitely strange.  It all ended up being less dramatic than what I felt, of course, probably because for everyone else it's just the next order of business - although Karl did suddenly have more attention when he started talking about it!  For me it's more like the end of an era.  Karl announced it almost in one breath:  "As most of you will know by now the lovely Laura is leaving us, and the person who will be taking on her role is Hugh".  And then it was done.

So three or four days later, on Monday, Hugh was in the office with me, learning how to do the pay and the roster and how to find his way around the computer.  He's also been helping me to have individual meetings with all the staff, just to find out where they're all up to and to make sure they know how we feel about their work.  That's been a learning curve for everybody involved - me included.  Which is a good thing.  I've been supervising Hugh while helping him to run the meetings, and doing it without undermining him could be interesting if he happens to say something that I don't think is appropriate.  The staff need to see him as my equal right from now, so I don't want to correct him in front of them if I can avoid it.  I've also suddenly found myself working in the shops four or five days a week.  It's been a while since I worked in the shops, let alone had to be at work at 730am, so that was a bit of a shock to the system all round. 

When I received my insurance information on Saturday (thanks Dad!) I finally had everything I needed to apply for my Russian Tourist Visa.  They are tricky visas to obtain.  You have to show where you are going to be each day, where you're going to stay each night, and who's going to be hosting you while you're in the country, and you have to show that you have a confirmed medical insurance policy which is valid in Russia.  I paid the tour company to organise the pieces of paper I needed from inside Russia, because otherwise it would've meant chasing the Russian host tour company and hotels myself, which I was not keen on. 

Tuesday wound up being my day off, so having checked everything in the application pile umpteen times, I set off to the Russian Embassy.  I knew it was in Karori, and I had imagined some grandiose building with huge gates and scary looking guards, most likely with bullet- and stab-proof vests and machine guns, on a main street.  But when I Google mapped it, it was on a really suburban street.  I found my way there, and drove all the way up and all the way back down the road.  I saw a relatively grandiose building with big gates, so I naturally assumed that was it.  It was a retirement village.  I had by that stage parked and started walking, so I kept walking like that was what I planned all along.  I happened to see a totally non-descript place with a big white wall that had a small plaque on it, which turned out to be The Embassy of the Russian Confederation in New Zealand.  Not exactly what I was expecting.  The only security was a gate at street level that you had to be buzzed through.  I walked up the stairs and opened the door.  There was a swelteringly hot room with a window at the far end that looked through to the next room, a lot of signs in Russian on the walls, about six people sitting around, and one or two spare chairs.  Everybody in the room turned around and stared at me as I walked in.  I had no idea whether there was some kind of obscure queuing system going on, but one of the women behind the window immediately called me over.  Another woman was being served next to me at the window, and she was speaking rather loudly on her mobile in Russian.  The woman who was serving me was clearly Russian.  While she was looking over my application, the door opened and someone else came in.  They said something in Russian which everyone else in the room repeated (note to self:  Start Studying) and I finally worked out why everyone stared at me silently when I'd walked in.  I was the only person there who wasn't Russian.

The woman who was serving me spent a good few minutes reading over everything, comparing things on the various pieces of paper, and then reading things again while running her finger along underneath them.  Me being me, I was by that stage absolutely certain that I was going to be told I couldn't have a visa for some reason that they'd then refuse to tell me, and that I was going to have to rearrange all my flights and accommodation and tour dates.  But, total anticlimax, she just asked for payment, and said that everything looked fine and I should come back next Thursday to pick it up. 

So in the next 45 days, I only have to:  sell my car (which has now decided to grow a leak in the head gasket and render itself completely unsalvageable and unsaleable); sell my bed and stereo; decide what I'm going to keep and what I'm going to throw out, both at my flat and the pile of junk Dad's been storing for the past few years; pack a bag to travel with and maybe a box to have sent over to Canada when I get there; buy a flight from Athens to Vancouver and one out of Canada; organise accommodation in Hong Kong, Greece, and Vancouver; start learning Russian; and organise the written references I want.

Oh CRAP.