Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Long Wait to Moscow

The good news is I finally made it to Moscow, Russia.  The journey getting there though was long, and I feel exhausted.  I think in total, the journey took over 24 hours including wait time.

Besides the wait, the journey was a pleasant one.  It just wore down my body.

For instance, when I got to the airport, I had a whole full row of three seats all booked to myself.  Someone had an awesome sleep into Berlin.

Yet, in Berlin I had to wait 6 hours to transfer to Moscow.  So, I had a complimentary lounge pass.  I used it to eat some salami and crackers.  Not very good, but at least they had French Cognac and champagne.  That was nice.

The flight to Berlin to Moscow was about another 3.5-4 hours.  I arrived into the Russian Capital at 2:05am.  No buses running.  No trains running.  They're were just hawker taxi people who wanted to charge me a $100 USD to take me into the City.  I decided to wait for the morning train and skip on the hotel.  Why pay a full fee for just a few hours?

I instead went upstairs and ate an Indian meal and had sparkling water and a beer.  The price of the water was unbelievable at $6 USD.  It was a small glass too.  The beer was $6 USD too.  Everything is just way overpriced (more than a usual airport) in Moscow.  But I was already warned.

I already experienced racism.  I was targeted by a police officer, who wanted to randomly check my passport.  They do this, and extort a bribe from you to get it back.  When he saw, however, it was an American one he backed off pretty quickly.  Racism is really overt in Moscow.  Tomorrow night, I fly out into Siberia.

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