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.

My feet are frozen. Our driver parked about a meter from the curb. There was a nice 10cm puddle I stepped in. The Cole Haan loafers. Traffic sucked getting there and back. Traffic always sucks in this town. But I’ve never seen so many high-end cars in my life outside of anomolies like Beverly Hills.

So now the shoes are outside waiting for shining and my feet are ensconsed in the little shoes the match my bathrobe.

So now I’m in Russia watching an American TV show dubbed into German. The King of Queens. I’ve only seen the show in a foreign language. When I saw it in Mexico at least I could get a jist of the story line. In German, no fucking clue. I just finished my $40 hamburger that I washed down with my $9 coke. But at least I didn’t go to sbarro. My coworker wanted to go to McDonalds. But I was more interested in warming my feets and lounging in the room with more living space than my apartment at home.

I’ve found myself saying danke shoen to people here. I’m usually one country late with my language skills. I will probably tell the people at the Frankfurt airport on the way home I’ll be dropping spasiba to the Germans.

Tomorrow I have a 6 hour tour of the city the local office set up. This should be interesting except it will be -10c outside. I also get to hang out with coworkers, that like fish and houseguest get old after a few days.

Saturday, I have a 7am flight home. We have to leave for the airport at 4am. If it was any later we’d have to leave at 2am. Since we’re leaving a day early, I have a 5 hour layover in Dallas. For an hour long flight. I’m thinking about renting a car since it is about a three hour drive. When you’re 300km from home, waiting five hours sounds like suck. Of course, I’ll be working on no sleep and it isn’t usually a good idea to operate a car on no sleep.

SOME people question how I can go all the way to Moscow only to dine on mall food. Perhaps I wasn’t overly clear. It was late. It was Valentine’s Day. I’m across from Red Square. The options are quite limited. The options were threefold: Sbarro at the mall; the fried chicken place at the mall; or overpriced room service.

Did I mention this town is expensive? In additon to my $640/nt room, the itnernet is costing me $40/day, and a Coca Light in the minibar is $8. A room service cheeseburger is $40 before the service charge. The buffet breakfast was in included in the room but it is normally $57.

The room is nice. However, my room hasn’t been remodeled yet — it still is a 5-star room, it just doesn’t have the plasma tv my coworker’s room has. But my room is on the corner and is larger so I’m happy. The closest analog to this room would be something similar in NYC which would probably be about $425/nt. At that room a burger would also be $40. But the minibar Diet Coke would only be $4 for a .2l bottle. A similar breakfast to the $57 breakfast buffet I had this morning would be 18€ in Germany or included in the room price. To be fair the breakfast this morning did have caviar and a bunch of other fish stuff not usually part of a standard buffet [but the hotel in Munich did have chicken wings on the breakfast buffet... which is a first for me].

Here are my favorite hotels in no particular order.

1. Hotel Baltschug Kempinski – Moscow
2. Four Seasons – Beverly Hills
3. W Hotel – New York [the original on Lexington Ave]
4. W Hotel - Mexico City
5. Shutters on the Beach – Santa Monica
6. Valencia Riverwalk – San Antonio
7. Hotel Elephant – Weimar, Germany
8. Hotel Pulitzer – Amsterdam

The cool part is the only I’ve only had to pay to stay at Valencia and W Mexico City. The others were for work or using points to get in for free. Because there’s NFW I could afford to stay at these places otherwise.

I got to Moscow tonight. Cold and some snow. We flew from Munich to Moscow on Lufthansa and got to the airport on time. Passport control was painless — about a 10 minute line — I’ve had worse in Chicago and Mexico City. The Russia woman looked at my passport, Russia visa and registration card (something I’ve read would be bad if lost) and stamped them. The customs area is just by the baggage claim. We got a little confused of the need to declare things. Lonely Planet said we should note electronics like PCs, phones, etc. And we went to the declare line and waited. There were people with big trolleys stuffed with things to declare. A Mongolian chick cut to the front of the line and the customs lady let her go. I went up to the front too. The Russian lady looked at my declaration form and said we could exit in the nothing to declare line. So then we were free to go. A little confusiing but not really as painful as the stories I’ve read on the interweb.

When you emerge from the customs/baggage claim area, you’re met by a throng of people — taxi and car service drivers. If you don’t have a car ordered, I think you can get ripped off. Our company had a car waiting for us so the driver took us to the hotel. Traffic in that town sucked. Probably took close to two hours to make the 40km.

The hotel is right across from Red Square. It is $600/nt. Thank god someone else is paying for it! It is a nice room. Probably within the top 5 I’ve ever been in. This bed and comforter is decadent. When you check in to a hotel in Russia you must get a stamp on your registration card within 72 hours or you are screwed. At my hotel, it was only a 15 minute process. As Russia is the country that invented “papers please”, you can’t walk around without your passport. However, Lonely Planet says you can use photocopies of your passport, visa and registration card. Loneyl Planet cautions that sometimes cops will take your passport until you give them a bribe. I didn’t see anything like that tonight. Since it is Valentine’s Day, there were a lot of couples walking around Red Square. There was a stage set up for concerts. There was a roller rink.

Went to the mall across from Lenin’s tomb and had dinner at Sbarro, the pizza place you see in the mall. Except you can buy beer and smokes at this one. I got cash from an ATM that gives you a choice of rubles, US dollars or euros. The currencies seem to be used interchangably.

Yes it is Tuesday. My last day in Munich. Had decent meetings. Could have gone better. Definitely could have gone worse. Coworkers took us town to the Marienplatz for some German food [and Bier] which was nice.

Tonight we down again and there was a Neo-Nazi rally going on. About 10 dipshit nazis and about 100 counter protesters. It was sort of surreal. The police set up a buffer zone between the nazis and the protester to quell any violence. There wasn’t any. Instead the two groups traded songs in German. I had no idea what they said but it was the lowest key hate demonstration ever.

You can’t see it because that guy stood in the way of the anti-nazi’s banner which said “Thank you allies” and people were holding US, UK, French and USSR flags. The nazis had old German flags [swasticas are illegal here] and an upside down US flag. Like the KKK rallies in the US, the hate groups look like fools. I really would like to beat the shit out of those intolerant fucks. But the more they look like the clowns they are, the less people they can get to join the cause.

Tomorrow morning I’m off to the Russian Federation for my first trip into Eastern Europe. It should be pretty wild to see. I’m staying right across the river from Red Square so I’ll make my time outside short and sweet. I’ll be back home Saturday night.

So I went down to the Marienplatz last night on a mission to get contact lens solution and a case, a charger for my phone, something to eat and something to wear before the shops closed. I didn’t find anything I liked clothwise and made the command decision that I’d shop tody if my suitcase didn’t arrive. That wasn’t very smart since no stores are open on Sundays. I knew but it didn’t register. Something about no sleep for 27 hours made some of my brain shut down, I guess.

So morning arrives but I missed it, I slept through it. Those curtains in hotels that completely block out the light are awesome. I woke up at noon just in time to check out. No luggage.

I still had the car so I decided to make my earlier planned drive up to Ingolstadt to see the Audi Forum.

On the drive up to Ingolstadt, the weather was good but then started raining. The Autobahns became pretty clear so I could see what I could get the BMW up to. There’s a sticker on the speedometer saying to keep it unter 210 km/h. I couldn’t get it to 190 giving it everything it had. When there was no speed limit I kept it at a nice 160 km/h. As you get closer to cities it gets down to 120 km/h and 100 km/h. There were areas of dense traffic and the signs would get down to 60 km/h.

If you don’t know, Audi’s headquarters is in Ingolstadt. Seeing people on the street made me wonder if they were involved making my car. I know, very geeky. The Audi Forum is a large complex that houses a museum and restaurants. There’s a customer area which is a showroom without salespeople and some of their better cars not sold in the US. The Audi S8 is something I’ve always wanted. So the one they had there had 124,000 €. Very nice car and it gave me a boner. You can get nearly 5 of my A4s for the price. However, the one they had on display was the same color as mine.

I realized on the drive back to Munich that I was happier with my Audis than with the rental BMW. It is amazing what those guys in Ingolstadt has done with the turbo. The BMW was just gutless. Thank god I had a six-speed manual transmission or I would have been roadkill from some of those high-end cars in the left lane. I also didn’t like the built-in GPS system that much. Example: We’re taking the car back to the car hire company and I wanted to fill up the tank. I found I could find a list of petrol stations but in alphabetical order, not distance base. So the random Esso station I picked was 40km away! Fortunately just as I was about to turn into the Sixt depot, I saw a Shell sign. It was 1.39 € / liter. In American that translates to really fucking expensive. Made even worse by the fact my dollar has lost 4% since I was here in December.

Took the S-bahn from a station about 2km from Sixt to about 3km from the hotel. Naturally it was raining the whole time. And of course I didn’t have a coat or umbrella.

But the good news was when I got to the room and my bag had been delivered. So now I can take my contacts out. Now I can take my medication. Now I wear clean clothes. I had talked to my manager about if the bag was going to be delayed since I really needed to get fresh contacts and if something happened to them, I’d be 6,000 miles from home blind. Plus the stinky clothes and the medicine. If I wasn’t to hear from the airlines by tomorrow, I’d cancel Russia and go home Tuesday morning. All for nothing though. My bag is here. And now I have my iPod charger [my POS work PC cannot charge devices in its USB port]. So things are looking good. Wearing clean clothes and not having my contacts is great. Although I’ve been staying in 4-star hotels this trip, it sort of feels like I was camping without fresh underwear. The best part was the “luggage” I had checking out of the Hilton this morning was their laundry bag filled with my dirty t-shirt [I was wearing the free Lufthansa shirt today] and the toiletries I bought last night. Felt pretty good checking out at the executive lounge.

Tomorrow a full day of work. Same with Tuesday. Wednesday I’m off to Moscow. More work Thursday and Friday. Play day Saturday. Come home Sunday.

The day from suck. So we get to Frankfurt without incident. Then the plane to Munich was delayed. We had to wait in the airport and then on the plane for about 2 hours [this is non a <1 hour flight]. So I got that going for me.

Then we get to Munich and my bag doesn’t show up. Yes, this is the same thing that happend last time I checked a back into Munich. So I had to file a claim and left with one of those lost luggage things with a t-shirt, some toothpaste and other stuff. I have business meetings Monday-Friday. Fuck.

So we leave to hit the Mietwagen for the wheels. Huge lines. Takes forever to get out of here. BMW 3 series. Nice.

I get to my hotel. Told I’m on the executive floor and don’t need to check in with the riff-raff in the lobby. At least some things are going right.

I’ve been up for 26 hours. I want a shower and shave. I want to change out of the stuff I was wearing all day.

Everything in this country closes early. So now I have to rush down to H&M and get something to wear tomorrow. I need to get contact lens stuff. The weak dollar is not my friend.

All I want to do is sleep.