(III)Moscow : Red Dawn

My wonderful Step-mother Amy is full of it. Full of good advice that is. Why lug around two suitcases when you can stick one in a locker at the airport? Always the right tool for the right job, she likes to say. Call a spade what it is, a shovel! But if she tries to tell you to check two bags on S7 airlines (who never having heard of my step-mum will repeat : "Sorry sir, you may only check one bag"), hold your ground!

Ten euros per kilo later, I make my way through security, but not before bumping into some poor woman on my way (my flight leaves in 10 minutes, go go go!). I realize that my breath is not going to do anyone any favors on the flight and quickly brush my teeth (my flight leaves in 6 minutes, run!). I make it to the gate with plenty of time to spare (5 minutes 'til lift off) and.... not only is there the woman into whom I bumped at security, but the rest of the passengers. They're taking their sweet time loading, or rather preparing to load us. I amble over to Shannon (oh she has a name, she must be an important part of the story!), and apologize for being so rude at security. She's been living in Moscow for the past year teaching english, and she introduces me to her friend and Orthodox nun for the past lifetime and a half!

She and the rest of the plane are leaving dublin after a tour of a bunch of old hills and half buried rocks. You wouldn't think that rocks could be that interesting to talk about, but coming from a nun with a bunch of Russians sitting around to hear the stories again, anything would have been interesting at that point. Alas, like the tower of Babel, we are divided into our seats on the plane unable to communicate.

I idly wonder which city it is that we are passing over right now. Is it Moscow yet? No, we still haven't left the runway. Are we there yet? No, we must be flying over the baltic sea. Wait a minute, we must be close. I know this song. Yes, the pilot said we would be on time and I had timed this song almost perfectly. We're descending, and in the grey squishy thing between my ears echo the words : "I am just a new boy, a stranger in this town. Where are all the good times? Who's gunna show this stranger around?"

I remember only three things before I passed out on my dorm bed. The first was the most anxious moment in my life : "What if she decides they have too many math majors in Russia? Is my visa valid? I don't look anything like my passport photo... Shit, I forgot my piano music!" The customs lady hardly took a second glance at me or my passport. Whatever welcome she might have uttered had she been inclined to be so welcoming would not compare to the immense feeling of joy I felt banging my knee into the metal turnstill on my way into Russia.

The second was after picking up my checked baggage. I walk through customs, and see from the crowd my face staring at me. I'm tripped out on a sleeping pill, in a foreign country, with customs officers trying to talk to me in Russian. The last thing i need is an existential crisis. From behind my face pops up Liza's face, she squints then turns the sign around to reveal my name. After satisfied that my face and my other face are a good enough match, she breaks into a grin and gives me a hug!

In the darkness of early morning we hop into a car, she falls asleep in the back seat, and I get to make small talk (very small, neither of us speak the other's language) with the driver. Domodedova appears to be in the middle of forest. Moscow happens slowly, sneaking up on you. Every now and then you are fooled by a cluster of buildings, maybe purporting to be the edge of Moscow. But you know to wait. I waited and then I saw the sun rise on the city and on my new life in Moscow.

(II)Dublin : The calm before the storm

I'm not sure which is more striking. The fact that there are more Australians than Irish in Dublin, or that the street signs are older than our constitution.

After nearly getting run over by not looking the right direction when crossing the street (the maniacs drive on the wrong side of the road!), I take a bus into Dublin and hop off at the Dublin Spire after realizing that I was hopelessly lost without the address for the hostel. After some grunting and hand gestures I established that the local language was not yet Russian, but English. I make it to my hostel after a while wandering around with wide eyes and a fly trap the size of a tea saucer. This city is beautiful!

I no sooner than step out of a long overdue shower than meet one of my roommates who promptly invites me to join him and our other roommates to a tour of the Jameson whiskey plant. As night turned to day, so did the whiskey turn into Guinness. Awesome night made short : well, I think I just did. Surely my impression of this night was biased by my debut into travelling in Europe and hanging out with other twenty-somethings coming and going on their own adventures, but it was just that : amazing.

The next morning, I crawled out of bed then woke up. Knowing that I had everything to see and no time to do it, I naturally gave up. I walked through a triathalon, past the zoo, found a museum (and my new favorite modern artist), and otherwise wandered aimlessly around Dublin. I'll take tours when I'm retired, I'm here to see the city.

Any impressions? I feel like I should say that the people were really nice. But I won't. I don't understand why this is such an oft used description of a city. Are there cities where people are supposed to be really mean? Is there some backwater city in the world were people go out of their way to be rude? We give too much credit to culture and its ability to fundamentally alter a person. So far in my limited travels, niceness seems to be prevalent among people. Even if they're not from Portland.

Dublin. Where the people party as if they bought sin at a two for one sale. My gateway to Moscow.

(I)Pre-game impressions : The party is always funnest right before the police arrive

This summer was a blast. My jobs didn't leave me a burnt out shell at the end of the day, and what's more : I got to choose my hours. This let me hang out with many awesome people : old friends and acquaintances from school, highschool friends freshly graduated from university, and new, fun people that crawled out of the corvallis woodwork during the summer. This summer was especially filled with energy. Everyone I knew was on their way to adventure. They were applying to grad schools and jobs, moving to the middle of nowhere and to highrise apartments in manhattan. With this in mind, you could see why I quickly became despondent as my trips increased in frequency near the end of summer, eventually landing me in Russia.

My first reaction to my changing circumstances was that I was putting my life on hold. I had spent time with all these awesome people over the summer, and they'll continue to be awesome and do awesome things while I'm gone. All of a sudden, the barbeques and inane discussions over which is the best microbrew of the collection were going to be a fifth of the world away. Almost as many miles as there are feet in a mile away. If I could hear people in Oregon shout my name, it would only be 7 hours and fifteen minutes after they shouted that the sound would reach my ears.

For a while this rain cloud hung over my head (they call me Joe Bfstplk). But then though I knew I would miss my friends (I do), I realized that this outlook would imply some sort of constancy that doesn't exist. My friends change, my home cities change, and (in an egotistic way) most importantly I change. I love how we're supposed to become less egocentric as we age, but really I'm becoming more so. It's not so important where I am, or what I'm doing. Any experiences I have is, by definition, my life. Just as there is no rewind button, there ain't no time to get up for more popcorn either.

So here I am fresh out of summer. I worked, I partied, I left. I got to see family wedded, wasted, wetted, and wizened. Here's to life and to whatever it brings!

Trip to Moscow, part 1 : Visa in San Francisco

The trip started out easily enough. Peter was going down to the Bay area to look for jobs, so I caught a ride down with him. The trip was going quickly, perhaps the easiest long distance drive I've done. We were about a half hour outside of Medford, OR when I heard in a very resigned voice, "Oh, shit..." It took me a couple of minutes to realize that the voice was my own.

Earlier that morning, I remembered that the consulate wanted a copy of the vital pages of the passport. I made the copy, but it and my passport sat in the copier while I rushed out of the door with my suitcase and backpack...

After a frantic phone call to my mother to arrange the delivery of my passport, we're back on the road and make it to Bezerkley in no time (both of our fathers had predicted a 12 hour trip, we made it in considerably less time).

I've always been a fan boy of Portland. It's been the center of food, music, and other culture for my adult life. To me, it is the greatest thing since or before sliced bread. I've visited other cities, but they were too large (LA), dirty (LA), uninspiring natural surroundings (LA, DC), or I just didn't have enough time to explore them (Seattle).

However, my trip to San Francisco (not long enough!) has me head over heels in love. Much larger than Portland, you find yourself easily drawn into an introspective mood : where do I belong? what is my place in society? who am I? But it is small enough to get an idea of what it's all about. Small enough to get lost, but know in the back of your mind that you can always find your way back to something familiar.

With that in mind, the days I spent waiting for my passport, I walked the breadth of the City from the ferry building to the pacific ocean. This feat need not be attempted more than once in one's life. There are far too many hills and they are far too steep. It did have the benefit of letting me scope out the route to the consulate for the following day, but unfortunately I didn't keep to the maxim : "Bring your camera everywhere". Determined to walk slightly shorter distances the following days, I found that hopping on a random bus for half an hour and then walking back was a viable way of seeing the city for cheap. This is how I stumbled up on a Russian neighborhood.

Unlike at the Russian consulate (I had barely uttered "Добрый день-Good day", than came the curt request "Please speak in English"), the neighborhood гастроном owners were more than happy to oblige attempt at Russian. In addition to the bureaucrat's reluctance impatience with foreigners butchering his language, I got my first taste of Russian.... adherence to rules.

I had arrived at the consulate half an hour before their visa desk closed with all of my documents. I checked my application in the lobby for the 50th time (you know, just in case I had accidentally said I had been issued a French passport or something silly). I walked up to the window, where I was promptly urged to speak English, and stuffed my documents through. He checked them over, nodded in an appreciative manner at what I assume was my neat handwriting, and then asked for the payment. I took from my wallet a fat stack of 20s and attempted to push them through the slot only to find it blocked by his hand. "I'm sorry, we only accept money orders", says he. The blood drained from my face, my heart slowed, and I started to panic. Where am I going to find a money order in the next 15 minutes? Will I get back before they close? Did I make a mistake on my application? Did I remember to send Robert a happy birthday facebook message?

He must have read the consternation on my face about having forgotten Robert's birthday and took a deep breath. "Wait a second," says he as he walks out of sight. He comes back with a receipt book and looks me sternly in the eye, and talking without moving his lips (a talent bestowed on Russian men), he says very seriously, "This is a big exception, you must understand. We would never do this, and you are very lucky that we are taking your cash because it makes so much sense for us not to accept paper currency of the country in which we work." Ok, the last part of the quote wasn't accurate, but it conveys my sense of amazement how out of the way they go to justify the rule they're circumventing while at the same time making it seem like they've never done and will never do this again. We do the same thing, but when an exception is made by an American beaurocrat, they tend to act as if nothing circumspect was done.

Anywho, I'll probably litter my future posts with a few photos here and there, but if you really have time to waste, you can see more photos here.