kirktastic

Friday in Moscow. Our meeting was canceled and the local office set up a tour for my coworkers and I of the city. The good news was the sun came out. The bad news it was fucking cold. It was a six hour tour. We spent most of the time at the Kremlin looking at the various churches and the museum in the armory. I’m always struck by how much history there is Europe — or more precisely, how little history we in the US have. Downstairs in the basement of the armory is where they keep the diamonds and gold. You can’t go in with cameras or phones so you have to check them in the cloakroom with your coat [or cloak if you're wearing one]. The diamonds and giant gold nuggets were quite impressive. Aside from the loose diamonds, there were gifts and jewels given at coronations and between royal families.

You that movie Marie Antoinette? The trailer had New Order’s Age of Consent as the wagons went through the countryside. That song was stuck in my head for the rest of the tour of the museum. In the museum they had many of these wagons that the royalty cruised around in. And the coronation dresses they wore. There was also a large room with the gifts that other countries gave to the Russian royalty back in the day. These were from the 15th-17th century so there wasn’t anything from the United States. Considering the US didn’t exist then. The US is just a pip-squeak country.

Walking through Red Square a guy offered to sell me one of those cool Russian fur hats for 10 euro. Although my head was cold, I didn’t want to buy a fur hat or a fake fur hat. It looked too much like Peanut rolled up in a ball sleeping. I couldn’t live with myself.

We went on a driving tour and saw countless things I can’t remember. We stopped by a convent near a park where the lake was frozen over. We stopped into a minimarket to get something to drink. I bought 1.5l of water and a .5l Coke Light for 43 rubles. Remember I was paying 230 rubles in the hotel for just a .2l Coke Light. So yes, the hotel was way overpriced.

We then drove up to a looking offering a commanding view of the city of Moscow. It is near Moscow State University. Here more hats were for sale along with matryoshka dolls. In addition to the traditional styled dolls, there were sports figure (Miami Dolphins!) and political guys like Putin, Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair. Ehud Olmert, et cetera. No George Bush! But there were John Kerry and Bill Clinton dolls.

After the your I returned to the hotel. I decided to take a walk down the street the hotel was on away from Red Square and toward a Metro station. It was beginning to be rush hour and Muscovites were hurrying home. I blended right in — head down, covered in clothing. I made my way to a McDonalds. I know — me and my fast food fetish. But I’m not that adventurous with food and without English-language menus, I went to where I knew I could avoid fish or nuts. My Extra Value Meal came to 126 rubles [4.80 us]. The place was packed. They had a girl with a wireless PDA like thing to take orders. I pointed at the cheeseburger value meal on the menu. When I got to the counter the guy took my slip of paper and I gave him 1000 rubles because I had no idea how much this was going to cost. The counter guy asked if I had change. At least that’s what I think he said. But I just looked like a dumbass American and said “sorry?” with an English accent. Yes, that’s right, I pretend I have an English accent when I am not going to be understood.

Anyhoo, the food wasn’t too bad. Better than the American version. I sat in the McCafe portion of the McDonalds which was an upper scale coffee house. College aged girls packed the place. Coffee and espresso served in real cups. Nice portions of cakes and sweets. It was like a Starbucks but without the green apron.

After dinner I decided to go on the Metro. At first I was going to just walk into the station and see what’s up. It was all quite disorienting. Nothing was in English. What’s nice about Munich and Frankfurt trains is the systems are organize, German isn’t that different than English, and they announce the main stations in English. I wasn’t really sure what station I was in. I bought a ticket for 17 rubles so I could go downstairs to see the trains. The escalators that take you down to the trains went much faster than I was used to. The trains themselves were packed. I read in the Lonely Planet guide that the Moscow metro handles more traffic then the NYC and London subways combined. I believe. The trains are old and no-frills. The cars were packed. I hopped on a train to take it to the next station for the experience. It was packed. The train hauled ass to the next station. I got off. The Cyrillic name meant nothing to me. I went up the escalator to have a look outside. It was already dark so there wasn’t a lot to see. So I went back down and realized it was going to be difficult to find my way back to the station I came from. I remember it started with a TP and had about twenty letters in it. I made it onto the train I thought was going to the original station. About halfway on the journey it just stopped. No announcement, not like I could understand it if there was on, but I could’ve read the people if it was a just going to be a short or long wait. Eventually it started again and I got off at the station. I followed people toward the station exit, it wasn’t familiar to the time I went through so I was thinking I’d just take a taxi once I got to the surface. But I did find myself in the right station and finally the really long, fast escalators toward the surface. I emerged outside the McDonalds and went back to the hotel. If I had more days and it was 20-30c warmer, I really enjoyed it there and would have loved to see the subway away from rush hour. On the way home I found a coffee place called Coffee Bean which isn’t related to the California chain that looked inviting. But I had to get back to the hotel to get read to wake up at 3am for the ride home.

Saturday. Fuck it was early. The taxi taking us to the airport arrived at 4am. I was down in the lobby at 358 to check out. I learned that if I wanted to check out, I needed to call down to the desk the night before. Silly me. In 2007, in a five-star hotel belonging to a prestigious German chain, I sort of expected the POS to work 24/7. So on Monday I’ll have a fax with the final damage. The drive to the airport was quick. It is about 30km from the city center to the airport and we made it in about 24 minutes. That included a random police checkpoint. Nothing sinister. The cabbie got out and took care of it.

The airport was also a non-event. First there’s a green or red line to choose if you have if you have items to declare. We chose green. Then we checked in at the Lufthansa check-in. Then passport control. Then we went to the “VIP” lounge to wait for 2 hours for the flight. Apparently during peak hours the lines for customs, checking in and passport control can take 3+ hours. So in the lounge — they are not owned by an airline, but third parties. The lounge was OK. The Zamfir on the pan flute was a little loud for 5am, but the free Coke Lights were nice. The paprika flavored Pringles was an experience. It was also nice there was a open bar if you needed a shot of tequila before the flight.

You don’t go through the x-ray and security screen until you get to the gate. So here was the first Soviet style long line. At least they were civilized. You didn’t need to take your notebook out of the bag. You didn’t need to remove your shoes. Then there was a line to get on the plane. The ride to Frankfurt was pleasant. Breakfast was some nice crêpes.

The Frankfurt layover I spent in the Admiral’s Club. The section of the airport where American Airlines is located is being remodeled. It’s been like this for a year +. The flight to Dallas was nice. As luck would have it, Marie Antoinette was one of the movies on the plane [mini review: if the film was 1/2 as good as its soundtrack it would have been awesome].

I wasn’t feeling well as we crossed into the United States from Canada. It got worse around St. Louis. I was not looking forward to a 5 hour layover to Austin. I thought about just renting a car and driving. That would be only 3 hours. The good news was after US customs when you have to re-check your bag I talked to the American rep and he got me on a plane to Austin leaving in 30 minutes. Yay!

Got home last night and slept 12 hours. It is now Sunday morning. It feels like Sunday morning. All is good.