Back in Russia

Some days can be really long and eventful and today was one of those days. It started at 5:30 in the morning when I woke up from a weird dream just before the alarm went off. I am a master of weird dreams; it almost feels like I watch an intricate movie every night when I go to sleep. I could be a prolific writer if I ever put them down on paper. If...

Anyway, it's not every morning that alarm is set for 5:30 in our house. I was starting my journey today and I had a morning flight, so 5:30 felt like a necessary and least painful time to wake up. After running up and down for couple forgotten things we took off. Airport life is rather simple and structured in Iceland, so am not in favor of the idea of arriving much ahead of flight time. Actually I do not like it anywhere. I like flying, but airports are not on the top of my list of places to hang out at. But this time, I guess, objectively, I got too relaxed; I forgot to check my flight time! I just knew it was sometime after 7 and I assumed it was at 7:45 as that sounded like a good time for a flight. Doesn't it to you? My guess was off by 25 minutes, backwards! It means a lot when you arrive with a comfortably short half an hour to the necessary stuff so you end up on a plane and get to the fun part of traveling. It magically worked for me though and hitting the airport 20 minutes before the departure I still managed to be one of the first passengers to board the plane.

The flight was uneventful. I was too sleepy to care for a conversation. So I slept through the trip, misbehaved child on the seat behind and a chance to order food. I woke up with a fresh idea to skip stopover in Frankfurt - that was a plan originally. The clouds outside of the plane window were not promising a single sun ray and I overheard that the Frankfurt book fare - the biggest in the world - was already over. What else is there to do in Frankfurt? For 10 hours? Honestly?

I picked my luggage at a quarter past one and headed straight to the Aeroflot check-in desk. I managed to change my tickets to the flight that was leaving in 40 minutes - plenty of time compared to my morning flying experience.

To make it short, I made it. It's almost not worth mentioning that I was the last passenger to board and the crew new me by name and a seat number by then, as I happen to be holding the departure. The thing is they arranged for a second security control, exclusive for flights to Russia. So made my duty and stayed in line to be double checked for half an hour... until the boarding crew member, the same that changed my ticket, came running straight to me with crazy eyes. I had to go through the full control regardless of the waiting flight. The last thing I heard when running through the corridor - "Never again, will I change a flight for you!" Was it my fault? Honestly? They create stupid rules on stupid assumptions that Russians are more cunning on hiding their drags and WMDs that we all carry of course, just in case and then they blame you for following the rules and not protesting to be put through security twice.

I walked through 19 rows of judgmental eyes before I had a chance to dive into my seat next to a Chinese man who did not seem to mind even if he had a flight to Shanghai to catch that evening. We chatted through the trip and I learned that the textbooks about Chinese culture are true in those part where they say that personal income is a common topic for discussion.

All of a sudden we were landing into a complete dark. 4 hours time difference made me miss a good part of a day and offered late evening right after early afternoon.

My luggage happen to stay behind in Frankfurt, so I did not have to worry about carrying two suitcases through Moscow metro. I have this thing about escalators and luggage. Always get nervous when approaching one with a suitcase, not to say having two to take care of.

Moscow was dark and it was snowing a little. And it smelled like Moscow. And there were people in metro. And people spoke Russian. And it felt nice to be home.