Pubs, Alitalia, and Almost Russia

Меня зовут Эмма.
Or at least, for all practical purposes it is now. I tried to tell my professors that my name is Amber, and they would say, "Ammm...." and look at me expectantly. So I would say slower and more deliberately "Am-ber." They would nod, and say back slowly, "Ammm.....?" Until finally I caved and called myself what I knew they wanted me to.

"Emma." Proud acceptance shined in their eyes and a small "ah hah.... Emma...." as they wrote down my name. I never believed it when my first Russian professor in the States took me aside and said "Ahmbare... eet ees not gute name for Russian layne-gwidge. You weel now be Ehmma." Four professors later, and I understand now. Here, I can only be Emma.

Меня зовут Яша.
Apparently I am completely allowed to be called Jake, unlike Emma up there. But I felt bad, so now my name is Yasha. What a great friend, I know.

This is the start of our blog "Russia Impossible", as you will soon enough find out why it is called so. You will think to yourself, "What a clever and aptly named blog title...I never could have gotten to Russia if I were them." But here we are, in Russia...or so we are led to believe.

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An extremely brief and condensed version of getting to Russia

Our Journey began in June 2008. Jake said "Lets go to Russia." Amber, thinking Jake wasn't serious, agreed.*

December swings around and we began to work with a man named Jim, listed on the Consulate website, for Visa processing via mail. (Mistake number 1)

January 1st, Jake gets back from Korea and prepares to go to Duluth to turn in the paperwork to Jim.

January 4th, Jake goes to Duluth and finds that Jim does not technically have an office. After consulting with Amber, we still agree to send him our paperwork through UPS. (Mistake number 2)

January 16th, Jim emails Amber saying that we need to get our school to immediately overnight, FROM RUSSIA, our original invitation letters. Amber emails the school, and calls, even though we know it has closed for the weekend. Amber then emails Jim, asking why, when she asked him 2 months ago about needing original invitation letters, he said "Email copies would be best."

3:00am January 17th, Jim emails, in a panic, that we still have time to get it all done. He then proceeds to blame us for taking so long getting him all of the paperwork, which we sent well in advance.

5:00am January 17th, Jim emails informing us that since we couldn't get the paperwork overnighted from Russia, we would have to pay an extra 300$ each person for the consulate in San Francisco to "Rush" our visa application.

January 23rd, Jim emails saying we should get out Visas by February 1st. Our flight, scheduled well in advance, leaves January 28th.

January 26th, Still no Passports or Visas.

January 27th, Jim emails us saying he had the passports since the 23rd and that they should be arriving on this day. Surprisingly, they do.

January 28th, Amber begins packing. The flight to London is a Success. We get off the plane, find all of our luggage intact, and proceed to find a taxi to bring us to our friends work. The taxi to his work costs us 100 GPS. (180 USD) (Mistake number 3) Outside the work of our friend, amber leaves to go get them, Jake is immediately accosted by local authorities...on the ground of him being a terrorist.

January 29th-February 1st, Pubbing ensues.

11:00pm February 1st, Amber and Jake get dropped off by theirs friends at the airport to avoid another mistake number 3. Flight departs 6:00am, they stay awake, hoping to sleep on the plane. (Mistake number 4)

5:00am February 2nd, Email notification from Alitalia of flight cancellation. Put on next flight at 7:30, or so we were led to believe.

6:30am, Check in. Alitalia informs us that you are allowed 25kg of luggage PER PERSON. Amber and Jake weigh in at 78kg total. Overages paid in stunned silence, and possible future aneurysms (380GPS ~ 500USD.) (Mistake number 5)

6:41am, Amber and Jake buy large amounts of Vodka and wait for the plane. They also discover that you cant spend Alitalia coupons on Alcohol.

7:15 am, Boards the plane to Italy. (Mistake number 6)
7:30 am, Sitting on a plane.
8:30 am, Sitting on a plane.
9:30 am, Sitting on a plane.
10:30 am, Sitting on a plane.
11:00 am, Flight from Italy to St. Petersburg departs.
11:30 am, Sitting on a plane.
11:40 am, Plane in London cleared for Take-off.

3:00pm, Arrive in Italy and began to search for a new flight to St. Petersburg. Around this time we are informed that said flight leaves once a week. We are directed to another counter.

4:00pm, We find the other counter. An angry Italian man begins to insist we leave to Moscow in the next few hours, contrary to what the last lady we spoke to said, and we believe him. (Mistake number 7)

5:30pm, The angry Italian man leaves for the day. Amber demands to know why we are being told different things by representatives from the same company. Friendly Italian lady kindly tells us the other man was an idiot, and that we can leave the next day and stay in Italy at the Satellite Palace Hotel, at the cost of the airlines, for the night. We are sent to a bus stop outside.

7:30pm, We find the bus. We are brought to the Airport Palace Hotel and told to get off. We check-in successfully, much to our surprise due to the name difference. We drop our things off in the room and head outside to explore Italy.

8:30pm, We walk by the Satellite Palace Hotel and begin to panic. Amber and Jake walk in and ask about our rooms. They, much to our immense relief, tell us that we are staying in their Sister Hotel, the Airport Palace Hotel.

11:00pm, Shortly after having fallen asleep after being awake for roughly 40 hours, we received our wake-up call.

The Middle of the Night, Amber and Jake hear a jiggling of the door for roughly 30 minutes, assume its the wind, and go back to sleep when it stop. (Mistake number 8) An unknown time later, Amber awakes to see the room flooded in light, a man entering, and Jake sitting on his bed yelling, "WHO ARE YOU?! No! No! No!". The man leaves. Amber and Jake look at each other in shock, then Jake re-locks the door, and they both go back to sleep.

January 3rd, Our flight from Italy to Moscow is a success. We get through customs in a matter of minutes because we spoke English, not Japanese. We wait for our luggage for about 60 minutes, then enquire about it. It, apparently, arrived in Italy, then was sent back to London for unknown reasons. Our flight to St. Petersburg departs, again. We spent another 2 hours filling out paperwork, and their triplicates. It is stamped by two officials three times each.

We exit the baggage claim, and find an Aeroflot representative. She handed us two slips of paper, and said the word "Bus". We tried to explain the situation to her and ask for a more legitimate response. She replied, "Bus leaving". we ran outside and got on a bus. We began to panic around the time the Bus was driving in the exact opposite direction of the Airport. After 15 minutes of this panic filled bus ride, we arrive at an Airport.

We proceed to walk to an Aeroflot representative, who helps us get tickets. (Mistake number 9) We wait till about 8pm for the flight to leave, and go through security. Once we are through, and at the check-in desk, we are informed that the two of us were given the same seat on this flight. Around 9, our flight to St. Petersburg leaves without us, as usual. We are given new tickets on the next flight. We get through with no problems this time, and Jake buys a baked Potato. Flight gets off with no problems.

Midnight, we arrived at the St. Petersburg airport, and find a taxi. We drive to the address we had, at which point the taxi driver refused to let us out. he claimed this was a cathedral, not a school. We believed him. (Mistake number 10) He instead, dropped us off outside a 24 hour cafe.

3:00am February 4th, We begin to tire. At this point we realize we cannot stay awake until 10:00am, when the office opens. We walk through back, poorly lit, alleys searching for a Hostel or Hotel. We found the former and slept.

10:00am, We arrive at the school, are given schedules. Amber was given a test, while Jake was sent to Class.

12:00pm, Jake and Amber reunite and head across town to their apartment. we were given handwritten directions. We met a friendly man with candy and got in a van with him. He spoke a little French and English, so we rode in the van with him for a while, conversing. (Mistake number 11) He had us get off at a stop not even close to where we needed to go. He leaves. We find a metro and proceed to venture on our own.

3:00 pm, we arrive at our University "Hotel". We are given an apartment, then we both collapsed into our beds and slept.

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* Note: This could be considered our first mistake. If you think so, you are encouraged to renumber accordingly.