Visa Trips, Part II

Things could get a little confusing in this post because of the similarities in the names of Novokuznetsk, where we live, and Novosibirsk, the name the city where the mission home is, so for this post I will call where we live by the nickname Kuz.

When the mission office started planning our visa trip, they had us traveling overnight 3 out of 5 nights--on night trains coming and going from Novosibirsk as well as the overnight flight from Moscow and gave us about 17 hours to kill in Novosibirsk. Dave didn't like that schedule, so he went online and found much better connections than what they had planned, and we got to fly all the way instead of taking a train from Kuz to Novosibirsk and back. The office wasn't able to get the exact flights we hoped for, but we thought three flights to get to Helsinki sounded much better than an overnight train trip and two flights. It's the first time anyone had tried this schedule and these airports, but we knew we could handle it and looked forward to having some time to do a little sightseeing in Saint Petersburg during our 7-hour layover there.

The day started out great. A sister in the branch who speaks English very well was willing to be our taxi driver, which was nice because we weren't looking forward to a 45-minute trip to the airport in silence. We made all our connections, one of them just barely. They seldom use Jetways on the flights we were on, so we were loaded on a bus, got taken to the plane and climbed the stairs. After landing we did the same in reverse. It takes a little while to get everyone loaded and unloaded. Then we had to go through security again--between each leg of our flights, even when we never went out of a secure area, we had to take off our shoes, belts and anything else that might set off the machine. What we expected to be a 50-minute stroll between gates was instead a rush. But we made it.

When we got to St. Petersburg we discovered there are two terminals there, at opposite ends of the runway. We think one terminal is used for international flights and one for domestic flights. A taxi was the only way we could get from one terminal to the other--there are no buses, shuttles or trains running between the two and it's several kilometers with no walking paths. Part of our assignment was to do some reconnaissance and find out what is involved so others traveling through Saint Petersburg in the future can know how to navigate through the hassles. By the time we finished doing that and got all the details worked out, we decided to stay put rather than take a chance on missing our flight. We ate at TGI Fridays and had a surprise--our waiter got all excited when he saw our name badges. He is LDS and said he wants to go on a mission, but he's too old. We told him to find a wife and wait a few (or several) years and then go as a senior couple!

Unfortunately, we've told Nosovsibirsk that we don't recommend going through Saint Petersburg in the future because of the hassles with the airport. Too bad--we were looking forward to seeing that beautiful city on another visa trip, and we were excited about finally finding those elusive English speakers. Almost everyone we talked to had some English skills!

Helsinki was just as wonderful the second time there. It's beautiful, clean, lots of English, both spoken and written. And we get to spend time in the temple. We feel like we're in such a different world that we've forgotten what a treat the temple is. We met up with the Michies again, some neighbors from our stake who have been serving a mission at the Helsinki Temple, and went to a late lunch together after they finished their shift. They are a gold mine of information about the city and know a lot about the history of the Church in Helsinki and parts of eastern Russia. He speaks Finnish because he served a mission there years ago. They were very gracious hosts and showed us all around, ending at a huge department store called Stockman's where we could shop to our heart's content. It was a delightful afternoon. We're sorry they're finishing up their mission next week and won't be there for our future visa trips. Elder Michie sent us this picture of obedient geese using the crosswalk right by where we had lunch.

The Holiday Inn where we stayed is in a great location, right next to the train station. The FinnAir bus from the airport dropped us off at the plaza in front of the hotel, and the next day we took a train to the mall where we caught a city bus that went right by the temple. There are several malls and big stores within walking distance of the hotel. It was so easy to get around. That's typical of a lot of places in Europe.

Breakfast was included at the hotel. They put out a wonderful spread--it rivaled a breakfast buffet on a cruise ship. The hotel is downtown and although it's right next to the train station and in front of a very nice bus plaza, it's not noisy at all. Early one morning Arline watched for over an hour (maybe the German Omas rubbed off on her). There were usually 7-9 buses and sometimes as many as 16 in constant motion. We also could see trolleys and other buses going down the street a block away. It was fun to watch crowds of people leaving a train and hurrying to a bus or wherever they were going. Street sweepers were also out in force and got things clean to start the day.

We're not here on a mission for visa trips to Helsinki, so we won't say much more about it (but it sure is a wonderful bonus!)

We didn't buy any liquids like mustard or BBQ sauce this time, so we didn't have to check luggage on our way home. That meant hauling our suitcase up and down the stairs throughout the airports--very few working escalators and a few very small elevators at the airports--and going through security with one more thing, but we didn't have to worry that it wouldn't make the transition on the close flight.

As we disembarked in Saint Petersburg, we got off on the only Jetway used for any of our 7 flights. Then we ate dinner in the new Burger King. We noticed two tall round towers in the middle of the tarmac at either end of the terminal and tried to guess what they were for. We soon found out. After we went through security, we were directed down some non-working, escalators, got to a long People Mover that did work in one direction, climbed lots of stairs back up (the escalators at that end were permanently gated shut) and came up in the middle of one of those glass towers. They are additional gates! No Jetways, just gates. We watched an absolutely gorgeous sunset and then boarded the plane.

We weren't able to rearrange the overnight flight from Moscow to Kuz. "Overnight" means we boarded just before 11 pm and landed about 6 am. With the 3-hour time change, that meant we managed to get nearly 4 hours of sleep. Even the stewardess was tired. She spoke with a heavy accent and very quickly, so we couldn't understand much of what she said. We recognized when she said Novosibirsk in Russian and thought it was funny since we were landing in Kuz. Then she said Novosibirsk again when she spoke in English (that was about the only word we could understand). Overnight flights are hard on everyone. Even with that, we weren't prepared for what we saw as we pulled up to the terminal. We were very tired and our Russian isn't the best, but we can recognize the name of our city, and that wasn't what was on the side of the building. It said Novosibirsk, in both Russian and English. We got very nervous. Dave checked our tickets to make sure they said Kuz, and they did. Something had probably been said on the plane but we didn't understand it. We followed the crowd into the terminal and got a transit pass. We could tell it was a transit pass because it said "transit pass" in English on it. We were put in a holding area with many other passengers who apparently were diverted from various flights.

Sitting in the holding room we really struggled to stay awake--we'd only slept 3-4 hours on the plane, plus the room was SO warm. The heat radiated up through the floor and even melted a chocolate bar in one of our bags. However, the seats were the typical uncomfortable airport chairs, so sleep wasn't really a possibility. The batteries for Dave's hearing aids and the iPad ran out, which had most of our reading material and entertainment. We were so glad when they called our flight to Kuz.

Once in a while announcements were made when certain flights were ready to board and often repeated in English, but there was no translation whenever we heard them say Kuz, and there were no employees from the airlines to ask questions of. We were simply in a holding area. We sat and waited for 5 hours. We found out later that the airport in Kuz was fogged in. It finally cleared about 11 am. They took us back to the very same plane we'd flown in on--this time we didn't have to go through security again, had us sit in the same seats, and 35 minutes later we landed in Kuz. We got home about 23 hours after we checked out of our hotel in Helsinki.

The diversion meant that we missed an opportunity Saturday morning to talk with a high school group. The teacher has come to English Club and was very excited to have some American speakers talk to her English students. The topic was schools then (when we were young), now, and our expectations for the future. She knew we had our visa trip. On Thursday she had talked with the Elders to see if they could help her out if we didn't make it back. Apparently flight delays in Russia are more common than we realized. The missionaries covered for us and she was ok with that, although they couldn't give a first-hand account of what schools were like in the US 40-50 years ago. However, they said most of the students there were young teenage girls who absolutely LOVED the young Americanskis.


This week's Russianism:
We are learning every day how much we took for granted at home. We are learning every day, period. Patience is one of the things we're learning the most. We are amazed at how patient the Russians are and how they take all the hassles and delays in stride. They've come to accept things in their lives that we would never put up with at home. For example, when any vehicles get in an accident, big or small, they stop and wait for the police to come, even if it's a bus or trolley. They don't move the vehicles until after the police are through checking it out, a process that can last well over an hour. Traffic backs up, big time. When the police come, they park wherever is most convenient for them. Sometimes that means 3 lanes of traffic are blocked--two by the cars in the accident and one by the police. People just accept that. It drives Dave crazy!

It's surprising that there aren't more accidents because steering wheels can be on either side. Someone said they think that's because the cars with the steering wheel on the right are cheaper. We've decided there aren't more accidents because most people use public transportation so there aren't as many cars on the roads, plus we think drivers have learned to be more defensive in order to deal with the mix of right- and left-hand steering wheels.