From Russia With Love

Well. I'm back. And I thought maybe it would be interesting (maybe...maybe not?) to tell you about how I got back. I mean it was nothing that exciting, but it was a long trip and I don't really have anything else to write about and I thought it would be about time for an update. So this is it.

My flight from St. Louis to Chicago left at 1:15 in the afternoon on Thursday which was really nice because I didn't have to get up super early and I got to have brunch with Mom and Dad before I left. Plus, the airport wasn't super crowded so I didn't have to get there 3 hours early. On the flight there was no one sitting next to me so I got to spread out and it was pretty uneventful. And when I arrived at O'Hare my gate for the next flight was right around the corner!
Anyway, so I'm sitting at gate K19 waiting and waiting and waiting and I've been watching a lot of LOST lately so I was looking around at my fellow passengers to see who I would befriend and who might be a problem if we crashed on an island. Our plane was late coming in (like an hour late) so I walked around and stood up for as long as possible before I had to be sitting down for forever. And then! These TSA people came around while we were still waiting with bomb sniffing dogs! They sniffed all our bags and there were like 5 TSA people standing around talking and a policeman. It was a little freaky because the plane was late and then all this and this old lady (but cranky and not a cute grandma type old lady--a rich snotty old lady, you know?) asked them if this was new and what were they sniffing for and the guy told her, "I'm sure you can guess." But she still couldn't figure it out. Anyway so the plane finally gets there and we board and they had the dogs on the thing that you walk to the plane on and I didn't see it until it was right next to me and I jumped because it surprised me! But I didn't want to look suspicious or anything so I tried to act like it wasn't a big deal. But then they were pulling people to the side if they didn't have a US passport and were questioning them. Crazy, huh?! Plus, this African guy started talking to me about the dogs and everything and later I heard him speaking fluent Spanish, and later speaking fluent French! I bet he was some kind of secret agent or something. So all that was pretty exciting.
On the flight to Madrid, I had three open seats next to me so I got all comfortable with two pillows and a blanket and spread out and we took off and I had this vision of me laying down across all the seats and sleeping the whole flight until this guy came and sat on the other end of the row. But he watched a movie for awhile and didn't care that I spread out and then I thought maybe I should share so I only took up two seats and later he took up the other two and slept. But the flight felt a lot shorter than on the way to Chicago (well, it was actually, but it felt really short). When we got to Madrid, the sun was rising and there are mountains all around so it was really beautiful and I had a 4 hour layover so it was nice to take my time and enjoy it. I sat at Starbucks for awhile and read a book and looked around at all the duty-free shops and when I went to my gate to get my flight to Moscow, it was really funny because you could easily pick out the Russians. It was weird to hear Russian again.
I'm pretty sure I was the only American on the plane to Moscow with a bunch of Russians...but here's the thing. It's like a 5-6 hour plane ride but it's on one of those smaller planes that you would fly on from St. Louis to Chicago or somewhere like that. So it was a little bit uncomfortable especially after having room to spread out on the last two flights. Plus, I was completely exhausted and I kept falling asleep but I didn't really have anything to lean against and I kept having to get up because the girl next to me had to go to the bathroom all the time.
So we land and in typical Russian fashion, they don't wait their turn or have any concept of "it's crowded, you won't fit walking through the aisle to get your carry-on out of the overhead bin and take it back to your seat while everyone is standing in the aisle waiting to get off and get their stuff" (ok so this might have happened and I wasn't really excited about it).
So I get off the plane and go through passport control, where again there were no lines-just groups of people and you have to kind of just be aggressive. While I was waiting for my suitcase, I was reading this sign about what you are supposed to declare on your Russian Customs form (which I don't even know why they have customs here because they don't check or do anything--I don't even fill out a form) but two things on the list were sort of interesting. It said that you have to declare in writing: "cultural values" (how does that work?) and "special equipment for secret information acquisition." So I guess if you are a spy or something you have to tell them that you have special stuff maybe.
Then I couldn't find my driver. It took forever and I don't think he was very happy that he had to wait (my flight was late coming in) and on the drive back I got REALLY carsick. I get carsick sometimes but it's usually not all that bad; Well, I do get motion sickness from swinging on the playground but that's a different story. This was bad. I was gripping the sides of the car and I tried closing my eyes but ohmygosh I thought I was going to puke. Here's an example of how they drive here: so we're waiting at a light behind a truck in the left turn lane. The light turns to a green arrow and in America, you would follow the truck and be behind him and turn into your lane. But my driver (Mom don't read this, you'll worry about me) saw the light change and goes AROUND the truck to get into the lane BEFORE the truck could.
I gave the driver a nice tip and he helped me carry my bags up the 3 flights of stairs and I was finally back. It was weird arriving in a foreign country and being familiar with the sights and customs rather than be looking out the window and gawking at everything. I go back to work tomorrow...I'm not sure if I'm really ready but I guess I don't have a choice!