Siberia

Dear Readers,
I have just returned from my trip to Siberia, which was delightful, in a low-key, tree-hugging kind of way. First, it takes us 2 hours to actually get to the airport. Moscow traffic is atrocious and rapidly worsening. Because Siberia is 5 time zones away from Moscow (+13 from New York), most flights take off at night and land in the morning. Russian airports are a phenomenom to be experienced to be believed. First we were uncermoniously shooed out of one registration line because it was "business class only" even though the sign said in English economy class registration. Boy was I dumb to read the sign to determine what to do, when clearly the better policy was to wait in the wrong line until the devyshka told me that I had, in fact, waited in the wrong line. Anyway, made it through the check-in process only to encounter the security gate and a full body pat down. After that experience, I think the security guard and I are dating, or at least she owns me a dinner.

On to the gate, where things get really fun. So its 10:25, boarding ends at 10:55 (no start time noted), there are two bored attendants at the gate and an open door behind them. In front of them is a packed waiting area. Through the open door is a bus packed full of people. Occasionally a person will disappear through the open door and get on the bus. Huh? So I disappear through the open door and get on the bus, which promptly pulls off and takes me to the airplane. Again, huh? Why didn't anyone say anything? Who is running this show? So we get to the plane, the bus drops us off on the tarmac, in the rainy, windy, cold night weather where we...you guessed it, wait to get on the plane. Why, huh? We wait a bit more, just for good measure, then they graciously allow us to board the plane via wet, slippery, steep, rickety aluminum steps. I love this country. In the interest of full disclosure, the flight attendance who prevented us from boarding the plane, was also waiting in the cold, night rain, so I am not sure who she pissed off.

So we finally get on the plane. I am in row 32, the last row of seats before the lavatories, AKA the pee-pee row. It is amazing how the smell of urine can be so strong but concentrated. At row 31, nothing, all normal. At row 32, the smell jumps ups and grabs you by the nostrils. All I can do is just "try to find a happy place".
The flight itself is uneventful, thank God. However, during our approach to Irkutsk, I notice for the first time that condensation is leaking from the window in our row. This means that somewhere a seal is broken or not properly affixed. Since the inside of the plane is pressurized and the outside is not, improper seals are a bad, bad thing.

Looking at the fat water droplets squeezing through the windowpane and falling onto the oh-so-clean carpet while the plane is in a 15 degree dive, was comforting in a way that words cannot describe. I just went back to my "happy place", which is located on the River Denial.

We arrive safely, but emotionally scarred at Irkutsk airport. We deboard the plane to a bus, which delivers us to a little building. We are very heartily welcomed into the little building and just as promptly escorted out of into the waiting area cum parking lot.


Our bags show up about 40 minutes later (maybe they were on another flight). By this time our tour guide and our very comfy bus have arrived to pick us up and transport us, via the scenic route, to our hotel in Irkutsk. Its much more chilly in Irkutsk than in Moscow, but a light jacket is more than sufficient. The Angara river flows through the town, there are some beautiful churches and interesting wooden houses, but it is overall not an impressive city. It is small and not very well preserved.



The hotel looked surprisingly modern, but my room was extremely small. The bed was so small that I could not roll over, I had to resort to the bounce and flip. And even that technique had to be used with extreme caution. I also had some lovely colored water. Clear water is so common and overrated, sort of like diamonds. Yellow is a much more rare, and hence, more prized color.


We had some professional meetings in Irkutsk on Thursday and Friday. Saturday morning, we were off to Listvyanka on the banks of Lake Baikal. Listvanyka is a quaint little hamlet. I believe it is too small to be a village. It came with the requisite cows walking along the (unpaved) roads and the hamleters (to be a villager, one must live in a village) who though the tall, black American man was, of course, Eddie Murphy. Seriously, no kidding. At this point, it is a little annoying.


Baikal has 20% (by volume) of the worlds fresh water. It is so big, it could fit 8 Lake Superiors in it and still have room left over. So much for the "great" in the "Great Lakes". All I could think about was when and by whom will all that water become a weapon. The lake is also the deepest and clearest lake in the entire world.

Allegedly you can drink right from the lake and swimming in it is supposed to be very healthy. It is supposed extend your live. However, since living in Moscow actually dramatically shortens your life, I am just hoping to net out even.

Anyway, I went into the lake. I had been told that the lake water was really, really cold. But I figured, the banya has a cold water pool, I'm a banya veteran (I've been a total of twice) so I am prepared. I wasn't. I couldn't stay in for more than 1 minute. I did dunk my head under, so I hope the gods of Baikal (and anything that big has to have some gods attached) count that as "swimming".


Baikal is actually quite beautiful. There is a wonderful legend about Baikal that explains its unusual features. Baikal has over 300 rivers feeding into it, but only one, the Angara, flows out of it. At the point of effluence, there is a huge rock. The Angara goes onto to join with another river. The legend is this, Father Baikal had 300 sons and one beautiful daughter, Angara. One day Angara saw a handsome man and fell deeply in love with him. She asked her father for permission to marry the man. Baikal said no. Angara, upon hearing her father's rejection of her true love, ran off to be with him, throwing a stone in his way to prevent her father from catching up to her. Angara met up with her true love and married him. The end.
This is a picture at dusk of the "Kamen" or rock that Angara threw to impede her father's pursuit.

We took a boat tour of the Lake. The captain took us further up the shore and then docked so we could explore that part of the forest. Two of our fellows (who shall remain nameless) got it in their minds to skinny-dip in Baikal. God Bless them and Death to Shrinkage.

Hope the plethora of pictures makes up for the untimeliness of my posts. Next Post: I may be a movie star.

Sweden, The Bizarro Russia

Dear Readers,
I am back from Sweden and packing up to go to Siberia. I would be a bit more excited about my trip if planes didn't keep falling out of the sky in Russia. Russian fatalism is well-founded. Anyway to take my mind of my impending flight (hopefully successfully round-trip), I will regal you with tales of the secret gem of a country known as Sweden.

I had a fantastic time in Sweden. I knew the trip was off to a good start when I saw Ice-T (Detective Tutuolla for the SVU fans in the mix) in the airport at 7 am on Wednesday morning. I actually spoke to him and conversation was scintillating. Here it is verbatim Me "Hi, were you on the New York Flight?" Ice "Yeah", Me "Was it Flight 68? ", Ice " I don't know flight numbers". The end. How great a country is this?

Anyway, my travel-beleaguered, delayed but still smiling family showed up about 20 minutes later. And as tough as I like to believe that I am, I cried. I was just so overwhelmingly happy to see them that I could not help myself. They all looked great. The girls looked taller, Mark never looked more handsome and everybody was smiling. We bundled the family into the nearest taxi and we were off on our Sweden adventure. I should scroll back and say that I got to Sweden the day before and stayed with our friend Micke H, a native Swede. He is a super class guy and a great friend. He is renting a place that was built in the 1700, the place was extraordinarily charming and I loved it. It had wood floors and two working wood stove/chimneys. There were wild English gardens in both the back and the sides of place and a gravelly front court-yard. It was truly beautiful. Micke and I went to dinner in the trendy Sodermalm district and then walked down by the water. Water is not hard to find in Stockholm because the city is located in archipelago of 24,000 islands, between Lake Malaren and the Baltic Sea. I believe that the city itself is build on 5 or so big islands. I took lots of pictures, but unfortunately, have no idea what the buildings are, just that they are beautiful.

Stockholm City is a small, big city with a compact center. It is very beautiful and has all kinds of interesting architecture, sculpture and landscape/seascape scenes. It is pretty easy to navigate. But the absolute best part about the city is the people. The people are so nice, polite and Sweden is one of the last places on God's green earth where Americans are still liked. Everyone was so helpful to us and interested in talking with us because we were Americans. Sweden is family-friendly in word and deed. Children are welcome at restaurants of all price levels. Buses accommodate strollers-- in Russia, the buses don't even accommodate people.

Sweden completely disconcerted me. Everything there was the total opposite of Russia -- hence the "Bizarro" reference. The people were genuinely nice and helpful and it took a bit of time to adjust to that. In Sweden, I felt none of the tension and hostility on the streets and from the people that is a matter of course in Russia. Stockholm is a really cosmopolitan city with all shades of brown mixed into to the dominate blond/blue eyed palette. As a indication of how diverse Sweden is, there was a black hair care product store on the main street in downtown Stockholm. I was so geeked about this discovery, that Mark thought I was a bit nuts.

I look at Sweden and really wonder how they got it so right and Russia veered so badly off course. The Swedes can and do complain loud and long, righteously, about the high tax rate -- as high as 62% real tax rate. However, I would trade off that high tax rate for the high life expectancy, low infant mortality, high literacy, low crime, low pollution that Swede enjoy. Russians flat 13% tax rate seems a small, cold comfort in light of the fact that men only have 59 years to spend the other 87%.

I, too joined the chorus of tax complaints because Sweden imposes a 25% (yes you read it right 1/4 of the value of the purchase) tax on all goods (restaurants, shops etc) sold. The tax is called "moms" in Swedish. I am not sure if that is a linguistic in-joke or an unfortunately quirk of acronyms, but I wondered for many days, just who's mom was she and why the hell weren't her own children taking care of her.

The family had a great time. The first day we went to Grona Lund (Tivoli Gardens) -- the Swedish equivalent of Six Flags. Our hotel provided us with these cards called the Stockholm card. These cards entitled us to free public transportation, including boat trips, and free entrance into over 70 museums and attractions. Grona Lund was one. The girls really enjoyed the place, the rides, the entertainment and especially the ice cream. We spent our first full afternoon there. As the girls tired, we took a boat tour out to a near island in the archipelago. The girls slept the entire ride. On our second day, we toured Skansen, which is the worlds largest open air museum. We spent almost the entire day at Skansen; they have a zoo, kids activities, bakery, stables and an aquarium. At the aquarium, the girls just had to pet the snake and tartantula on display. Yecch.
Friday, we returned to the center of the city and took a bus tour. Mark met up with Micke and had a "boys night out". Let me just take moment to send a huge shout out to my husband. From the beginning, he has been an unwavering bastion of support for me and my desire to do this program. He is doing a yeoman's job of raising our two girls alone. He never, ever complains and is running the household at high efficiency. His sacrifice, and it is an enormous sacrifice, drives me to succeed in this program. He is an amazing individual and the best husband in the world. After 10 years of marriage, I am blessed, blessed to have him as a life-partner.
Okay, okay enough mushy stuff.
On Friday, the girls and I went to see Garfield 2 or (Gustav 2 in Swedish). Sweden does not dub TV shows, but they do dub movies, so you have to check which language a US movie is playing in. I fell asleep during the movie, but the girls liked it.

On Sunday, we did some souvenir shopping and took Micke out to dinner as a thank you.
Monday, we packed the family and headed back to our respective and temporary homes.

Our visit reminded me of how many fellow travelers I have on this journey, including you dear reader. I would love to come back. Sweden is now my favorite country in Europe. I would highly recommend Sweden to any traveler.