It is time for me to once again take some of the blogging responsibilities off Jill’s shoulders. I just posted her impressions of our first day with Helena. I’ll summarize my trip and then fill in from where she left off.
I left Thursday night about 10 PM Eastern from Washington Dulles. I was on a 777, and I had hopes that I would be able to find an empty row to stretch out and sleep, as I knew that the fare I was on was non-upgradeable. Of course that meant that the flight would be completely full, without an empty seat to be found anywhere. I had an aisle seat in Economy Plus, so wasn’t I uncomfortable, but I proved once again that I can’t sleep on airplanes anymore, even when aided with Ambien. At least I had a selection of movies to choose from, and enjoyed the Will Ferrell NASCAR movie (Talladega Nights?) immensely.
I arrived in Frankfurt at about 11 AM local, and promptly made my way to the Red Carpet Club (to which I had access courtesy of the amount I fly for work back home). I made myself comfortable and settled in for my ~7 hour layover to read the English language newspapers they stock and to browse on their snack bar. I even tried to doze a bit, but couldn’t get comfortable enough to do more than nap for about 20 minutes stretched across two chairs. I had just refilled my water bottle for my flight to Perm when they announced that they wanted everyone in the Club to step outside and go through the security checkpoint. Of course when I got there, they immediately asked if I had any liquids. I decided it was time to move on to a Lufthansa club nearer to the gate where my flight would be later in the day. No new English papers here, and crowded enough that I couldn’t stretch out anymore, but I was sitting at the window and enjoyed reading a book I had brought and watching the airport operations outside. Finally at about 3:30 local I decided to check on the status on my flight to Perm. The attendant told me it was on time and pointed out that there was another Lufthansa club across from that gate. I decided to head over there. It was a smaller club, but not crowded. Looking around, I discovered a small room off to one side with three recliners for sleeping! If I had known earlier, I could have headed straight to this club and perhaps caught a bit of rest. At about 5PM local, I headed over to my gate. They bussed us out to our plane (which was way out in the boonies).
Once again the flight was completely full – as were the overhead bins by the time I made it on board. I had a window seat, which helped a little, and settled in to try to sleep once again. I napped a bit, but spent much of the time looking out the window as we passed over Stockholm and Moscow and the way to out first stop, Nizhy Novgorod. We landed there after about three hours flight time, and about half the passengers got off. I noticed that the row across from ours was empty, so promptly grabbed my stuff and took possession. It was nice to be able to stretch out my legs, but with only about an hour and a half of flight time from Nizhy Novgorod to Perm, I didn’t get a chance to try to sleep.
This time around I knew the drill on the ground and got near the front of the line for passport control – but of course then they opened a new line that moved much faster than ours. I knew I was in trouble as I got near the booth, as I recognized the lady as the same one that had a hard time understanding my double entry visa on my departure from Perm. Sure enough, I got up to her, she asked my something in Russian, to which I replied “Ya nye panimayu paRuski” (or “I don’t understand Russian”) and she waved me over to the side. I got a lot of commiserating looks from the Russians in line, and a short time later her supervisor showed up, looked at my passport, said something short and abrupt in Russian, and I was waved back up to the booth, my passport stamped, and sent on my way. Customs went very quick, and Lana was waiting to whisk me through the snow to the hotel. By this time it was about 5AM Saturday local (or about 7PM Friday back home). Jill has covered Saturday from this point on in her post, so I will wrap this up and get started on how our first day with Helena went.
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