Part I: LOT Polish Airlines
Previously, when I flew on Korean Air, no one on the plane really spoke English. Of course, I obviously stood out as a non-Korean, so no one merely babbled at me in Korean and assumed that I would understand either. The problem with flying on LOT Polish Airlines was that everyone assumed I could understand Polish… at least until whatever it was that was said to me was met with a blank and confused stare. About half an hour into my flight (From New York’s JFK to Warsaw), the girl to my left tried to start what sounded like a very jovial conversation with me. When I quizzically said, Ummmm, hmmmm?, she repeated herself, before then asking, in heavily accented English, “Do you speak Polish?” When I laughed and said no, she replied, “Ohhhh. I’m sorry.” And she sounded genuinely sorry. Additionally, Polish (as with other non-Russian, Slavic tongues) confuses my ears to no end. I recognize many words – or at least think that I do – but for the life of me I simply cannot match the words together in any sort of comprehension.
My ride on LOT Polish was not the most comfortable of flights, although I found the food to be surprisingly tasty. The in-flight movie was Miss Congeniality II, but the audio for the movie worked in neither English nor Polish. The interesting thing was that no one complained. Everyone around me flipped through the audio channels over and over and had conversations (sometimes in English, so I understood) along the lines of “Can you hear it? No, me neither.” But no one buzzed the flight attendant. That’s the sort of thing that would have caused a plane full of stereotypical American tourists to raise a stink. Since no one seemed to care about complaining, I didn’t. I wasn’t dying to see Miss Congeniality II or anything, although it would have served to relieve the tedium of an eight hour flight without draining my meager literary reserves. The girl to my left and I flipped through the audio channels continuously for about ten minutes before shrugging, smiling at one another, and giving up. When in Rome. Er, Poland.
The only other thing that was interesting about my long and essentially boring flight on LOT Polish was that as soon as the plane touched down in Warsaw, all of the passengers broke out into spontaneous applause. I don’t remember that happening on any of my other trips to Eastern Europe, and it certainly didn’t happen on my flight into Russia.
Part II: Aeroflot
I’d heard a lot of horror stories about Aeroflot. Namely, I’d heard it characterized as “the world’s worst airline.” While onboard, I felt that Aeroflot offered the same level of service and comfort as LOT Polish, with the added benefit of the flight staff speaking a language I somewhat comprehend. The food was also quite tasty. I have a tendency to fold my tray table down and place my head on it in order to sleep while in flight (apparently this is something that only those of us of small stature can really accomplish – and there wasn’t even room for such a feat on LOT Polish, once the girl in front of me leaned her seat back), and as I was utterly exhausted, I promptly fell asleep in such a position as soon as I finished with my lunch. Imagine my surprise when I was awakened with a loud thwump! as the plane came to a jarring landing and my head smacked into the tray table. No nonsense about making sure your tray tables are in there upright and locked positions here!
Part III: My inauspicious arrival
We deplaned and went through immigration. I was pleased to see that we had landed a little early. Perhaps I wouldn’t arrive in Vladimir very late at all! My fellow passengers and I gathered around the appropriate baggage carousel and began to wait. We waited. And waited. And waited. After a little over an hour, the bags finally began to come. I had been slightly concerned about the fact that I took three separate flights through three separate countries on three separate airlines… would my bags actually make it all the way to Moscow? I had asked at each check-in: “Are you sure my bags will get there?” and at each location I had been assured that yes, they would. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my gargantuan new suitcase was the very first to come rolling down the line. I immediately felt all of my muscles relax. If one suitcase was here, surely they both were. Obviously, you can see where this is heading.
Previously, when I flew on Korean Air, no one on the plane really spoke English. Of course, I obviously stood out as a non-Korean, so no one merely babbled at me in Korean and assumed that I would understand either. The problem with flying on LOT Polish Airlines was that everyone assumed I could understand Polish… at least until whatever it was that was said to me was met with a blank and confused stare. About half an hour into my flight (From New York’s JFK to Warsaw), the girl to my left tried to start what sounded like a very jovial conversation with me. When I quizzically said, Ummmm, hmmmm?, she repeated herself, before then asking, in heavily accented English, “Do you speak Polish?” When I laughed and said no, she replied, “Ohhhh. I’m sorry.” And she sounded genuinely sorry. Additionally, Polish (as with other non-Russian, Slavic tongues) confuses my ears to no end. I recognize many words – or at least think that I do – but for the life of me I simply cannot match the words together in any sort of comprehension.
My ride on LOT Polish was not the most comfortable of flights, although I found the food to be surprisingly tasty. The in-flight movie was Miss Congeniality II, but the audio for the movie worked in neither English nor Polish. The interesting thing was that no one complained. Everyone around me flipped through the audio channels over and over and had conversations (sometimes in English, so I understood) along the lines of “Can you hear it? No, me neither.” But no one buzzed the flight attendant. That’s the sort of thing that would have caused a plane full of stereotypical American tourists to raise a stink. Since no one seemed to care about complaining, I didn’t. I wasn’t dying to see Miss Congeniality II or anything, although it would have served to relieve the tedium of an eight hour flight without draining my meager literary reserves. The girl to my left and I flipped through the audio channels continuously for about ten minutes before shrugging, smiling at one another, and giving up. When in Rome. Er, Poland.
The only other thing that was interesting about my long and essentially boring flight on LOT Polish was that as soon as the plane touched down in Warsaw, all of the passengers broke out into spontaneous applause. I don’t remember that happening on any of my other trips to Eastern Europe, and it certainly didn’t happen on my flight into Russia.
Part II: Aeroflot
I’d heard a lot of horror stories about Aeroflot. Namely, I’d heard it characterized as “the world’s worst airline.” While onboard, I felt that Aeroflot offered the same level of service and comfort as LOT Polish, with the added benefit of the flight staff speaking a language I somewhat comprehend. The food was also quite tasty. I have a tendency to fold my tray table down and place my head on it in order to sleep while in flight (apparently this is something that only those of us of small stature can really accomplish – and there wasn’t even room for such a feat on LOT Polish, once the girl in front of me leaned her seat back), and as I was utterly exhausted, I promptly fell asleep in such a position as soon as I finished with my lunch. Imagine my surprise when I was awakened with a loud thwump! as the plane came to a jarring landing and my head smacked into the tray table. No nonsense about making sure your tray tables are in there upright and locked positions here!
Part III: My inauspicious arrival
We deplaned and went through immigration. I was pleased to see that we had landed a little early. Perhaps I wouldn’t arrive in Vladimir very late at all! My fellow passengers and I gathered around the appropriate baggage carousel and began to wait. We waited. And waited. And waited. After a little over an hour, the bags finally began to come. I had been slightly concerned about the fact that I took three separate flights through three separate countries on three separate airlines… would my bags actually make it all the way to Moscow? I had asked at each check-in: “Are you sure my bags will get there?” and at each location I had been assured that yes, they would. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my gargantuan new suitcase was the very first to come rolling down the line. I immediately felt all of my muscles relax. If one suitcase was here, surely they both were. Obviously, you can see where this is heading.
Soon there were no more bags on the belt. It was still lumbering in a slow circle around the carousel, and I hoped fervently that there would be more baggage to come. Then I realized that I was the only person still standing there waiting for luggage. And then the carousel switched off. Unfortunately, I could not see a single person resembling baggage claim staff anywhere in the vicinity. There was a nice, shiny booth labeled “Lost and Found” which would have seemed promising had it not been empty. I wandered around the baggage claim area a little bit, hoping to spot some sort of airport employee, before finally heading back towards immigration, since at the very least I knew people were working there.
At this point I need to interject the part of this tale, which at the time was completely unbeknown to me: There are two main airports in Moscow: Sheremetevo and Domodedovo. Half of our group was flying into one, half into the other. I was part of the group arriving at Sheremetevo. The Sheremetevo has a domestic and an international terminal. Now, this might sound fairly humdrum to you, but here the “terminals” are actually separate airports altogether. We were all expected to arrive at the international terminal. My plane, for some bizarre reason, flew into the domestic one. (I, of course, had no idea of this whatsoever.) Anyhow, after picking up the people who arrived at the proper terminal of Sheremetevo, my group determined where my plane would be, and raced to meet it. They were (I believe) about an hour late. I was not waiting for them in the arrivals section of the airport, and they began to worry. Had I missed a flight somewhere? Surely had that been the case, I would have gotten word to them by now. Perhaps I had realized I was at the “wrong” terminal, and had endeavored to make my way to the other. What if I had gotten lost? What if I were wandering about Moscow?
Meanwhile, I had tracked down an immigration officer, who brusquely told me to go to lost and found. When I told her no one was there, she directed me towards a closed door. It turned out to be the lounge area for the lost and found staff. I found one lounging, and looking none too pleased at being interrupted. She told me to go to lost and found. Again, I reiterated that no one was there. She sighed and made a phone call. “Wait here. Someone will come for you.” She went back into the lounge and closed the door.
I waited. And waited. Finally, an elderly fellow came out from a door next to the baggage carousel. That looked promising. I explained to him my situation and learned that yes, he had come to help me. I should probably explain that at this point I had been traveling for approximately thirty hours and had had very little sleep. When I am tired I get frustrated very easily, and have rather an unfortunate tendency to burst into tears. This isn’t something that I’m proud of, but it happens, and when it does, I simply have no control over it whatsoever. Anyhow, the old man gave me a form to fill out. It was in Russian, and my sleepy brain was having a hard time interpreting it. Luckily, the man was nice, and was very helpful at explaining what needed to go into which blank. Unfortunately, there was more than one form (there were three or four in all, I think) and the more Russian bureaucratic paperwork I had to fill out, the more frustrated I became.
While still working on the first form, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker. “Would passenger Annie Nimity please report to the information booth to meet your party.” I pointed up towards the ceiling (you know, to the spot from which the sound had emanated), and said excitedly in Russian, “Those are my people. I need to tell them that I’m here.” (It didn’t occur to me until hours later that the man spoke no English. As the announcement had been made in English, he probably had no clue as to what it had said… and there I was pointing towards the roof and babbling on about “my people”!) He told me that I couldn’t go; I needed to complete the paperwork. As the paperwork continued (and grew more difficult), I began to grow more frustrated. Again, I heard the announcement. “Passenger Annie Nimity, please report to the information booth.” I told him I really needed to tell my people I was there, or else they would leave me. I asked him if he had a telephone. Perhaps he could call them and tell them I was there? (Again, I simply meant for him to call the information booth, although he probably thought I meant that I needed to place a call to the City of Vladimir.) He again told me no, and insisted that I continue to complete the various forms. This was the point at which I broke into uncontrolled sobbing. I had images in my head, of my group waiting over an hour for me, making some announcements on the airport loudspeaker, assuming that I had decided not to come, then hopping in their van for Vladimir, leaving me stranded in Moscow.
Luckily, a few minutes thereafter, a woman appeared in the baggage claim area. She seemed to be very agitated, and was talking to some airport staff about something she had lost. She looked a little like G, the woman whom I was supposed to meet. I had only seen pictures, and a brief video of G, and had seen neither recently enough to be certain of whether or not she could be the woman I needed to find. After all, I hadn’t yet gone through customs, and it didn’t seem likely that any member of my party would be allowed back where I was. Apparently, the lost and found booth is where Sheremetevo staff refer people with whom they really do not wish to deal. The woman was sent to where I stood. She began to ask the man a question, then turned to me in surprise, “Are you Annie?”
I was so happy I stopped sobbing and started crying in earnest. How absolutely embarrassing. Anyhow, I’m very glad she was there, as I don’t think I could have properly sorted out all of the paperwork by myself. So, we completed all the necessary forms. The old man told us that Aeroflot loses a lot of luggage, and said that it usually turns up in a day or two. Usually. G said that in fourteen years of doing this, she has had many employees lose their luggage, but only one person simply never received it. I am fervently hoping that I am not number two! It’s going to be a long, cold winter if I don’t have my coat. I have an entire Halloween costume and no winter coat. (I won’t even get into the impossibilities of life without all of the things in my second suitcase. They can, of course, all be replaced, although that will be expensive and rather difficult to accomplish from over here. At this point I’m still going to work on hoping that the poor thing makes its way to my doorstep.)
Finally, G and I made it out through customs, and met up with the rest of my party. At this point I learned of their trip between the two Sheremetevos, and how they were concerned that I might be off, wandering about the city or something. I had planned a nice visit to the ladies room, you know, to freshen up and make myself look all presentable after the long flight. Instead, the group got to meet a slightly hysterical and somewhat disheveled Annie. What a great first impression. Anyhow, we made our way to the van, loaded up my one (sigh) suitcase, and began the long drive to Vladimir.
The city of Vladimir is located approximately two hours east of Moscow by train. By car it's about three hours in good traffic, but it can take substantially longer if traffic's bad. It took us forever to get out of Moscow, simply because traffic wasn’t moving. We made a pit stop at a McDonald’s just outside of the city. I’m not entirely sure why McDonald’s, and it was quite odd to have my first meal in Russia be a cheeseburger and a coke (which I essentially inhaled), and then got back on the road. It took us (I think) about five hours to reach Vladimir. At this point I felt essentially as though I were about to drop dead. And of course at that point I got to meet my host mother.
I won’t talk much about my host mother, Nina M, since I’ve only just met her, and most of my impressions were probably distorted by sleep. Suffice it to say that she seems like a very nice woman who served me buttermilk and something very similar to cranberry juice before sending me off to sleep. More to come on that!
Anyhow, today was wonderful. The weather was perfect, and we had a tour of the school and a short tour of the city. I will write about all of that later, I think I've written enough for now. I do hope the suitcase comes.
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