My final week in Russia was spent taking care of some last-minute things, like arranging a ride to the airport, getting my transcripts in order, and finishing my term paper. My roommates and I also decided to go out the last Friday night we had together, and I did a little bit of exploring during the day, because the weather was absolutely gorgeous for a change (during the last 72 hours I was there, of course). Then, I just had to endure 21 hours of travel, and I'd be home!!
I got back to my apartment after my Moscow trip at around 9:30 Monday morning. I had some things to take care of at the university, as my phone helpfully reminded me, but I was just exhausted after Moscow, and I could wait until tomorrow and not worry about cutting things too close. So that's what I did. I woke up at about 2 in the afternoon, spending the day in front of my laptop in an effort to make more headway on this term paper. (Spoiler! I didn't.) I did go out and pick up some food for the rest of the week - ultra-healthy options like pasta sauce, ramen noodles, some eggs, milk, and two pounds of gummy candy, which was devoured by myself and my roommates over the span of the next eight days.
Tuesday was the most productive day I'd had in a long while. I went over to the university and arranged a transfer to the airport, then went to another office to request my transcripts. Apparently, on Tuesday, there are two women who work in that office and one of them was not there for her morning shift. I decided to go get some lunch and walk around the island a bit, then come back and see if the afternoon lady was there. I decided to eat at Taverna Grolle, a restaurant I walked past every time I went to class. The menu posted outside looked tasty and reasonable, so I figured why not? I got some Irish coffee (also why not?) and chicken Kiev (fried chicken cutlets) with pureed vegetables on the side. It was all quite tasty, and a most pleasant way to kill an hour or so. I still had some time before the afternoon lady was supposed to be there, so I decided to explore this shopping center and ринок (flea market sort of thing, with people selling produce, dairy, bread, as well as clothing and miscellaneous items) near the restaurant. I found a toy store full of adorable things like a giraffe pool floaty, and a Walgreens-type drug/sundries store where I got a new pair of stripedy yellow socks for the trip home, because the socks I had brought with me were too disgusting to keep at this point. I also walked around the rinok and got a few free samples of stuff like pickles and dried fruit before regretfully explaining that I couldn't buy anything today, perhaps tomorrow. Soon enough, though, it was time to go back to the facultet to try that office again.
When I got back, the lady was there, so I went into the office and got a form I needed to fill out to get my transcripts taken care of. I had to fill it out and get my teacher to record my grades manually; she was already gone by the time the lady in the registrar's office was available to give me that form, so I had to come back Wednesday to get everything together. That part went pretty smoothly, though, at least; I showed up after class on Wednesday, handed my prof the form and she filled it out without so much as a "Где была?" Then I took the completed form down to the office, handed it to the lady, and was on my way.
Wednesday, I decided to get lunch on the island again, and finally bit the bullet and went to this place that seemed like the most questionable sushi restaurant in a city literally full of sketchy-looking sushi restaurants. This place was called O'Sushi!. The exclamation point is part of the name. They do not, as the name seems to indicate, serve corned beef and cabbage alongside their cucumber maki, although they did have some lunch special bento boxes with a more European character available. I settled on the "Euro Mix" bento, which was a nice lunch of solyanka (soup made with a base of seafood broth), beef stroganoff, mashed potatoes, vegetable salad and a dessert roll (like sushi roll but with dessert ingredients instead of rice and fish). The solyanka was awesome, especially with a dollop of sour cream mixed into it. The stroganoff was pretty good, although the mushrooms were kind of overpowering everything. The mashed potatoes were delicious and garnished with dill, which only made them better because I love fresh dill. Dried dill is OK, but fresh is just awesome. The salad was field greens and chopped tomatoes and red peppers, along with marinated black olives and chunks of feta cheese. I didn't immediately realize that some of the red bits were pepper and not tomato, so that was a nice surprise. The dessert roll, though! That was unique enough to have made the visit to the dubious restaurant completely worth it. It was chunks of kiwi and banana, and creme fraiche, wrapped in a blini and drizzled with caramel sauce. Delicious and presented in a really interesting way to boot.
I spent the rest of the week plugging away at my term paper, taking breaks to walk around the city for a bit and enjoy the fabulous weather. I resolved not to sleep until the paper was done on Wednesday, got a goodly amount of work done on it and only intended to take a short nap at around 5:30 AM Thursday. A 20-minute nap turned into 7 hours of sleep, which I guess I needed anyway, but that was still six and a half hours of work time that I lost. I finished the paper Friday morning at 6:30, emailing it to Josh and promptly going to sleep until about 3 in the afternoon. I didn't know what to do with myself the rest of the day - I had no further responsibilities before it was time to leave. Apparently, my roommates felt the same way, because we decided to go over to Dumskaya (a short street with a series of bars and clubs) that night and have some fun. We stopped at a produkty and picked up beer for the walk over, then ended up going to Club Belgrad and spending a couple hours shouting and dancing and drinking there. We left and got shawarma around 3 AM, stopping to take some picturesque photos on the bridge over the Fontanka at about 3:30. Some of these are on Facebook, and the sky behind us looks like the sun is setting. It's actually rising. Staying out until the sun comes up is much easier in May than it is in March, for those who remember my post about St. Patrick's Day.
Over the weekend, suddenly faced with a ton of truly free time, I did a bit of city exploration; once, I just started walking, then about an hour later I realized I had no idea where I was. I had started taking random turns without really noting landmarks and got disoriented; even the shopfronts that I had been using as references were unreliable, because all of the prominent ones had other, basically-identical franchises within a few blocks of each other. I did eventually find my way back to Nevsky, and from there was able to find my way home. Also over the weekend, Corinne and I went over to Sadovaya to this rinok where I was able to get another suitcase; the red one escaped burial, though, because Corinne needed one. I bought a really snazzy brown/purple/yellow camo number, for 1800p (~$50), a far cry from the 4k (~$130) I had seen similar, less-cool-looking bags on sale for in luggage stores. I was all packed and ready to go by Sunday evening, for the most part; Monday was mostly spent cleaning and waiting.
Finally, 3:30 AM rolled around on Tuesday morning, and my phone rang for the last time. The guy the university hired to come take me to the airport had arrived. I put my laptop in my backpack, turned off my phone, and headed downstairs. The guy helped me load my stuff into his car, I verified that he was taking me to the correct airport, and we were on our way. When we got there I thanked him, wished him a good night and entered Pulkovo, the first of five airports I would have to navigate.
I started talking to a nice Canadian man (redundant statement, I know) leaving to renew his visa, which of course has to be done in Canada, because he ended up behind me at the check-in counter. We talked for a while, killing time before the flight; he'd been in Russia for a number of years, and was in the process of gaining residency. He had his four-year-old daughter with him, who was going to visit family. She was adorable and he was interesting to talk to; I actually ended up sitting in the row in front of him on the flight to Frankfurt. That was about three hours, and we got breakfast, which was unexpected but not unwelcome. There was an entree of what I'm told was a quiche, though it tasted more like quiche-flavored jello. There were also a couple of unimpressive rolls, butter and peach jam, and a juice box! I don't care if I am 20 years old, I love juice boxes. We arrived around 8:30 local time, and I was through passport control and customs and at my gate in about fifteen minutes. I bought a croissant, a latte and a cup of pineapple at a little cafe near the gate, because I knew I wouldn't be fed again until I was over the Atlantic. I had some time to get online and check my email while waiting for the plane, but soon enough it was time to go; we were in the air and en route to Belgium by quarter to 10, and on the ground about an hour later. Weather conditions in Brussels were overcast, so the plane had to circle for about 20 minutes before it was able to land. I made my connection, but I didn't have any real downtime, and I had to check in at the United transfer counter to ensure I would be able to pick up my luggage and get proper boarding passes. This flight was operated by United, not Lufthansa; I think I liked the Lufthansa flight better. The attendants on this flight were less attentive and just seemed less enthusiastic about their jobs.
By the time I got on the plane, there were no overhead bins near my seat to put my rolling bag in, but a nice older gentlemen a few rows back helped me put it in a bin back there. I passed this flight watching a couple of movies (Sherlock Holmes and about half of The Dark Knight) and listening to music; because we were going east to west, the trip was a bit faster (going against the rotation of the Earth) - about 7 and a quarter hours, to my first trans-Atlantic trip's 8. We got lunch (chicken and rice with an inedible salad, a roll, and a soggy apricot crumb cake) and a snack (a little ham and cheese sandwich, some chips and a Kit Kat bar--I kept this for later). When we landed, the gentleman from earlier got my suitcase down and brought it up to me. I thanked him and headed for the exit; we were shuttled from the tarmac to Passport Control.
I didn't like the American passport control office. Something about the way it was set up just felt so insincere and forced; the more austere decor of the Russian office was at least genuine. Also, I had forgotten how much American airports coddle travelers in comparison to airports in Europe and Russia. Instead of being treated like, you know, an adult, and left to figure things out on my own (like which line to stand in at passport control), there were omnipresent airport employees whose sole job appeared to be to give unnecessary directions and guidance to guests. There was a lady in the security area whose job could be done by a sign, or maybe a nice little video like in Frankfurt or Brussels, informing passengers of what articles needed to be placed in the bin. Instead, it would appear that the Washington, D.C. airport prefers to take the "unbelievably overbearing" approach to literally every facet of the air travel experience. After I got through passport/customs/security control, I emerged into a room with a Departures board and started looking for my flight, when I was accosted by an old man who was hired as one of the aforementioned overbearing superfluous employees. Not only could his job have been done by a sign, it was, and he was standing right in front of it. He pestered me into telling him what information I was looking for, then told me my gate number and how to find it just as I read it myself on the alphabetized departures board directly behind him. IAD could not possibly make it any easier to find your flight and they still feel they need people there to deliver that information. I didn't even need him to tell me how to find gate D26. There are large, brightly-colored signs leading the way every fifteen feet. At least the man has a job, I suppose, no matter how completely pointless and unnecessary. The announcements about keeping track of your bags and not accepting packages from strangers that played every five minutes are also not common at airports outside the US.
I was happy to leave DC for a multitude of reasons. Not only did it mean getting away from an airport that seemed to think it was everyone's mother, but it also meant that I would finally be going home, and I didn't have to go through all of the security BS at Orlando, because it was a domestic flight. I would be able to step off the plane, get my checked luggage, and go home, with no intermediate steps. Well, I did have to stop and hug my family, and then eat dinner at Sonny's, but those were intermediate steps that I was fine with. :)
I had started craving BBQ pork a few days before leaving, so I did some Googling and discovered there was a Sonny's just two miles from the airport, so it was decided that we would go there for dinner after I arrived. I got one of their combo plates, with ribs, pulled pork, and sliced ham, with corn and a sweet potato, and ate most of it. I hadn't eaten for about six hours at that point, and BBQ is delicious.
When I got home, I decided to weigh myself just for fun. I knew I'd lost some weight in Russia, but I wasn't sure how much, and it turns out I had severely underestimated: I lost about 15 lbs over the past 15 weeks, despite my steady diet of pasta and beer. Needless to say, I was basically thrilled. So, Tuesday was basically the best day. I made it home safe, got a good grade on my final paper for my culture class (97%!), AND lost 15 lbs since the last time I weighed myself! It was probably even more than that, really--I'm sure I gained a couple of pounds in my last few weeks, by virtue of spending basically all of my time in front of my laptop and eating stuff like a ton of gummy candy and ramen noodles at all hours. Whatever, I'm still happy with this, and readier than ever to kick things into high gear this summer.
Thus concludes my journey to the
Thanks for reading my blog, everyone! I hope you liked it; I certainly enjoyed sharing my experiences with you.
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