The Eclectic Vagabond

It was actually sunny this morning, so we decided to go to an Aussie rules game, checkin out the local Sydney team, the Swans.

For those of you who haven’t experienced the fun of Aussie rules football, it’s like rugby, but with 16 people a side and a lot more violence. All in all its a fun game to watch.

Of course, the rain came back by the end of the first half of the game, which meant, we were pretty much soaked by the time the game ended. But even more importantly, the Swans won over Brisbane, 82-74, making all the rain worthwhile.

And of course, what is a live sports game without the requisite stadium food. In Australia’s case, this is the classical meat pie. Althought I’m a bit of a heathen because I don’t have mine with sauce I(i.e. Ketchup).

Heath, this picture is just for you.

Only one vineyard in and I am already ‘nosing’ like an expert! This was at Saddler’s Creek vineyard, the first stop of the day. We still have two more to do

March 31 to April 2, Wednesday to Friday

The day of our flight out of Moscow, we got up early to repack our bags, trying to get both under the 20 kg weight limit. We were also still trying to figure out how to get to the airport; metro and train, taxi and train, or just a taxi (price warring with convenience) In the end, we shared a taxi to the airport with the two Swedish girls who had been in our room the previous night. They had already booked a taxi, and although they were leaving quite early in the day (1:00 PM and our flight left at 7:45 PM that night), we figured we didn’t really have time to do anything else anyway. Plus, with visions of the horrible Moscow traffic (some of the expats had mentioned to me that you wanted to plan for two hours to get to the airport) and of course the scary thought of Russian Customs, we figured we would need at least four hours anyway.

So of course, the ride to the airport was only 35 minutes with traffic almost nonexistent. A slight hiccup at the airport as we thought we would fly out of the old Terminal F (the same one we flew into) but Lo! we are actually flying out of the brand spanking new Terminal D! So a quick transit over to the other terminal is in order.

Luck continues because I find a scale by a pop machine that I can check our baggage weights with. Sure enough, Nat’s suitcase is still almost 2 kg over. So some more repacking but we quickly get both checked bags down below 20 kg (of course by this point, my carry-on and laptop case combined probably weigh 20 kg as well). More good luck as some airport guy tells Nat that we can check in now, even though it is still four hours before our flight.

And then the dreaded Russian customs and security screening …. takes all of five minutes, most of that being walking time. No lineups, no questions, no nothing. Hmph. Why can’t American customs be so easy?

So suddenly, we are already at our gate and its only 3:00 PM. The terminal is deserted, with two thirds of the stores and restaurants still under construction (the terminal literally has just opened). Oh well, I can think of worse things than five hours in a nice, clean airport.

The flight to Dubai is uneventful and we land in the incredibly busy airport at around 1:30 AM. The lineups for customs are long and slow and we do not get out of the airport until 3:30 AM. Darren is waiting at the exit (he’s been there since 1:30 AM, what an awesome brother) and it is so cool to see him again after so long. Tanya (My sister-in-law) is already at the hotel room, sleeping, and after a quick 20 minute drive (followed by a 15 minute tour of the mall parking lot near our hotel as Darren takes a wrong turn) we are at the hotel and sleeping as well.

We sleep in a little the next day, but are still up by 10:00 AM and start driving around to see the city. We check out both main malls in the city, since shopping is the national past-time of the country. The Dubai mall has (I think) the worlds largest aquarium and the Mall of the Emirates has an indoor ski hill. Gee, do you think they have enough money in this country?

We also take a drive out to the Palms (the artificial islands built in the bay that in the shape of a palm tree), checking out the multi-million dollar homes and the opulent Atlantis hotel. The level of wealth in this country is staggering to observe. Unfortunately, we are unable to go up into the Burj Kalifa (KaLEEfa), the tallest building in the world, as they still haven’t opened it up to the public after the unfortunate elevator incident a month before. The thing is crazy tall, with the rest of the skyscrapers around it only coming up to the knees of the massive tower, like toddlers standing around Andre the Giant.

We were only in the city a day, and there are still things to see if we wanted, but you know, I think I’ve already got a feel for the city. It’s a playground for rich business people, where the malls stand in place of public parks and are just like any other malls in North America, but up five steps on the luxury ladder. Instead of Gaps and Banana Republics in each mall, you have Versace and Louie Vitton everywhere.

But still the adage holds; the mall is where the weather is friendly and the people are always the same (although in this case the men are wearing kandora and the women abaya and sheila).

Just a note… Notice the Pictures link on the left hand side.  It goes to the photoalbum on this site so that you can check out any pictures I may have uploaded.  More to come soon!

March 29 & 30, Monday & Tuesday

Monday and Tuesday were up and down, with the result that we really only saw the Kremlin during those two days. Monday was the day that there were bombings in the Moscow metro; as a result our guide was late and we ended up not meeting up with her until two hours later (although neither her nor the tour company would actually admit she was late. This happened constantly over the next two days).

Galina, our guide for the armory within the Kremlin was a small, bird-like woman, constantly fidgeting as she talked about the exhibits. Getting lemon drops out of her purse, then lip balm, then a hairbrush appears as she fixes her hair, all while she talks non-stop in a quiet voice. Half the time I was bent over almost double just so that I could make out what she was saying, but it was worth the effort. Galina was incredibly knowledgeable about all the exhibits, and the Russian history was fascinating.

The amount of wealth displayed in the armory is overwhelming. Although a new “armory was built in the 19^th century to house all the current items, the original armory was where the Russian craftsmen actually did all of their work in the 16^th to 18^th centuries. There are over a dozen carriages alone, each more ornate than the last, and the room holding all the gold and silver items given as gifts to the Russian Tsars was breathtaking. Sadly, no pictures are allowed in the armory, so all I have are my feeble words to describe the opulence of the pieces on display.

Of course, my personal favorites were all the gold and silver chased bible coverings, probably over 20 books in total. I drooled over those for many minutes. The dozen or so Fabergé eggs on display were also interesting, but face it, they aren’t books.

The following day we toured the rest of the Kremlin, wandering through the numerous cathedrals clustered around the center of the walled city within a city. There are actually many government buildings in the Kremlin that tourists cannot access, so we really saw a small fraction of that walled city. But the cathedrals were all beautifully painted, and many of them had walls and walls of icons framed in gold. Again, no pictures are allowed inside.

We could not get tickets to the Bolshoi, but we did see a ballet put on by a group from Kiev on Tuesday night. We saw the Nutcracker, complete with a lot of strange rat people (I’m told this is normal for the show, but as I’ve never seen the Nutcracker, I was enjoyably surprised).

We had hoped to tour a chocolate factory and the metro (Moscow has some metro stations that rival cathedrals for opulence) on Tuesday with the same tour company that I did the Star City tour with and that we did the Armory tour with. Unfortunately, Patriarshy Dom canceled the chocolate factory tour (not enough people), and no guide showed up for the metro tour. When I emailed the company an hour and a half later once we got back to the hotel, I was told that the guide was there, and was still waiting for us. Whatever. As Mark (the expat New Zealander) told me, “Never expect a Russian to admit that anything is their fault.”

Still and all we pretty much managed to see everything we had hoped to in Moscow. So… time to move on!

Inside the Soyuz Training Capsule

I’ve been pumped about this day for weeks. Ever since I found some random Kiwi on the Lonely Planet Thorntree forum that was also interested in going to Star City (Звёздный городо́к, Zvyozdny gorodok), the thought of actually getting to go to the Russian cosmonaut training site has been jumping around in the back of my mind like a five year old at the circus who desperately needs to pee. All full of excitement at the trip in general, but badly needing to go and do that one thing to be really and truly happy.

Things really snowballed once Mark (the Kiwi who works at the New Zealand Embassy in Moscow) started mentioning the trip to other coworkers. Suddenly we are a group of eleven people, which includes the deputy head of the New Zealand Embassy, getting our own tour on the weekend.

Flash forward to today. It is 8:30 AM (Moscow time) and I am standing at Mayaskovaya metro station waiting to meet some guy I’ve never seen (did I mention that at this point I still owed him about $110 for the trip, which he had already payed for me to the tour company and just figured he would get from me eventually?)

Mark, his wife Li Ann and another expat Sue show up, introductions all around, and we walk to the New Zealand embassy where the rest of our group and a minibus is waiting for us. An hour long drive out to Star City (which is about 5 km outside the ring road that is considered the edge of Moscow) and we arrive at a turn-off into a forest.

The complex, which was started in 1960, is completely hidden from any roads; in fact, the exact location of the compound was a state secret for years. At the entrance to the compound itself, we meet our guide Alexander Belyav; a retired lieutenant Colonel who worked at Star City for 31 years and helped run the centrifuge training center at Star City before retiring in 2003.

Star City itself looks like a stereotypical Soviet village; all bad, blocky architecture that looks run down, even when new. But it just didn’t matter. As soon as we got inside the first building, that held the mock up of the space station MIR, its like I was transported to my own personal fairy tale. Walking down the length of the mockup, getting a real sense of the size of the station. It was incredible.

And then it got even better. In stereotypical russian style, our guide casually mentions that, if we wanted, we could go into the mock-up for “just a little bit more money.” Well duh! So for an extra $30 for the whole group of us, we got to go into the eating/living module of the mock-up. Then there was the 18 metre long centrifuge that can generate 30 g’s and the hydrolab that is 23 metres in diameter and 12 metres deep with a mock-up of some of the international space station modules.

And then, because it was the weekend and there was no one else around, for another $30 we got to go into the room where they have the Soyuz module mock-ups where actual training is still being done.

One of the highlights of my life so far was to sit in that Soyuz module, my feet tucked up next to my ass and laid out in a claustrophobic little chamber full of screens and buttons; ahhh bliss.

Damnit I WILL get to space some day.

Nat and I have finally started our big trip, with a first stop in (not so) Communist Russia. We landed in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport at 12:20, almost 21 hours since we first got in the car to drive to Halifax to begin our journey. Talk about jet lag! Paul is waiting there from Godzillas Hostel to give us a ride. I’m not one for taking a taxi/pickup when travelling, but believe you me; after 21 hours, you REALLY don’t want to haul around your luggage on public transit.

Godzillas has the deserved reputation of being the best hostel in Moscow. The rooms are clean, the staff is friendly, and there is free wi-fi. What more do you need. After a horrendously expensive supper (at some random place that had restaurant in English on the front, and some actual English on the menu which is why we chose it), we crashed at 8:00 PM, content that we had managed to stay up late enough to kind of get ourselves in sync with local time.

Saturday the 27^th. We get up at 10:00 AM after a good sleep and (sorta) raring to go! We grab some bread and cheese for breakfast at a local store, then just start wandering. We eventually make our way down to the Kremlin and wander through the famous Red Square. Actually, it’s just a big, cobbled square, and in and of itself, was surprisingly uninteresting. But the crazy, French Palace style GUM department store on one side, the beautiful St. Basils on one end and the crazy architecture of the historical war museum on the other end is what really made the Square live up to its itself.

We finished off the day with traditional Russian fare of cottage cheese perogies and cabbage rolls at a restaurant near our hostel and a lazy evening in our room just hanging out.

We are sitting in JFK airport waiting for our flight to Moscow. Baggage weights? 19.8 kg and 22.8 kg! Good enough for Aeroflot but we’ll have to get both down below 20 kg for the flight from Dubai to Sydney.

Thought I would show you what my name looks like in Russian.

Random default pic from the Nokia.

Blog from my new Nokia! Let the world tremble in fear.