“Have a safe and boring trip! (You're had to many 'exciting' airport adventures lately!)”
This was the message Katelyn
sent me before I made my way to PDX. I
laughed as I thought of recent airport drama, but this one was bound to be
easier.
I said my difficult goodbyes to
friends, family, and my dog and then loaded up the car with all of my belongings
that had to weigh less than 117 pounds total.
My mother’s friend Trisha drove, my aunt Tiana rode shotgun with my nearly
empty carry-on (due to Transaero’s rule of it needing to weigh under 17
pounds), and my mother sat in the back seat with me. She held my hand the entire way, telling me
how much she was going to miss me and how much she loves me.
I kept my tears at bay.
The group had agreed to come
in. I was terrified that my bags would
be overweight by a pound or two and I was not willing to pay $100 for an extra
sweater and they were prepared to carry anything that exceeded the weight
limit.
The JetBlue agent called for
anyone who was headed for JFK to come to the front of the line. I skipped the small group of people ahead of
me to get to the counter, at this point feeling unworried as I had more than
two hours before my plane was set to leave.
I held back a celebration when
my first bag was weighed at 49 pounds.
“Yes!” I exclaimed when the
second bag also came in at 49 pounds. I
turned to Trisha who had clapped when the number came up and we shared a fairly
epic high-five.
“Third time’s a charm?” my
mother asked from my other side with a laugh.
I ignored her because telling
her I had weighed and reweighed my bags more than three times didn’t seem like
an effective comeback.
“And we need proof of onward
travel,” the woman at the counter said.
My expression surely changed and,
when my eyes moved from the “49.0” on the scale to her face, I could tell she
was expecting that I didn’t have any onward travel.
“I don’t have any,” I admitted,
“I’ll just overland into Ukraine,” I said, listing the first country bordering
Russia that I knew I didn’t need a visa for.
“Overland?” the agent asked.
“Like a bus or something.”
She smiled at me and held her
index fingers and thumbs in a rectangular shape, apparently indicating a
ticket. “That’s great. I just need to see proof of a bus ticket
then.”
Despite my reasoning (why would
I have my bus ticket already? I was going to extend my visa, etc.) she was adamant
that it was JetBlue’s policy to protect themselves. Also, I would likely be denied entry into
Russia without onward travel.
“That isn’t what I was told,” I
argued.
The woman rolled her eyes at
me, like she was the expert on visas and how dare I challenge her
authority. “By who?”
“The Russian Visa Center,” I said
with narrowed eyes.
But she was steadfast and asked
me and my group to stand aside until I had forward travel. Oh.
And JetBlue doesn’t fly out of Moscow.
Panic ensued. We had three smartphones going trying to book
travel, any travel, out of Russia for as cheap as possible. Travel that I was certain not to be able to
take.
“Mine keeps going through the
same three pages!” I said in panic.
“What does it want for this
expiration date?! I’ve entered everything I can!” Trisha said of Expedia via
her smartphone.
I waited on hold with Expedia
hoping that I could ask them what they wanted for the expiration date of which
we had entered every possible entry we could think of (0320, 320, 03/20, 3/20,
Mar. 2020, March 2020, Mar 2020, 032020, 03/2020, and on and on).
An hour in I was gulping in
huge mouthfuls of air hoping that it would keep the tears away.
“It’s fine,” I was consoled, “we
have time.” But we didn’t.
Tiana approached me calmly as I
sat on hold with Expedia bouncing my weight from one foot to the other
nervously. “I’m just playing around on
here,” she said extending her Iphone out in front of me, “but would this be
right?” she asked of the itinerary.
“Yeah,” I said. But why would she be able to do what we had
been unable to do for the previous hour.
Someone answered the Expedia
Customer Service line just long enough to be completely unhelpful regarding my
simple question and to start trying to book me before Tiana said, “Alright, we’re
good,” her tone just as steady and unassuming as before.
“We’re good?” I think all three
of us said as we rushed around her phone to view the onward travel.
Trisha took the phone to the
new agent that had traded with the old and I hung up with the Expedia agent
after a quick, “We actually got something booked, thanks!”
"Well I'm getting an Iphone...?" my mother said half jokingly and half begrudgingly.
"It's important to diversify," Tiana said through a giggle.
I didn’t feel any more relaxed
with the boarding pass in my hand, as boarding started in twenty minutes. We set off for security only to find it
backed up and not moving. My heart sank
farther.
“You are more than welcome to
stay in this line,” someone on security began over the intercom, “but know that
we only have one line open. If you walk
down to the other security check they have three lines open.”
“Go!” Trisha yelled. And the four of us made for the other end of
the airport at an alarming pace. Retrospectively,
perhaps more dramatically than was necessary.
But at the time it seemed more than appropriate.
We said hurried goodbyes and I
was through security within ten minutes and arrived to my gate five minutes
before our scheduled boarding time (nearly half an hour before we actually
began boarding).
Begin transit mode.
I was going to take notes on
what was going on. Or maybe I would
journal. Or do some creative
writing. I would certainly at least read
my book. But I didn’t do any of these
things. As usual, I was completely
useless on this first flight, through my eight hour layover in JFK (half of which
I spent lounging on the ground waiting to check in with Transaero,
classy-like), and my next flight.
I met another teacher on the
flight who would be working with Language Link.
She too had flown JetBlue and had not been asked to purchase onward travel. The JetBlue agent’s face came to mind, frozen
in the moment she had held her hands up in a rectangular position, with an
eerie sort of clarity in which one might recall a childhood trauma.
The woman on the other side was
a Russian woman traveling with her son.
Switching seats with her and then switching once more with another
mother and son had ended up moving me from an aisle seat the most middle I could
get. But this woman was grateful for it
and spoke to me in heavily accented English with a broad smile.
Upon landing she was the first
to begin clapping and half of the plane joined her. She turned to me with a grin and told me, “I
am thanking God!” before thanking me for the wonderful company.
I left the plane feeling ready
to be in Russia.
For the first time in my life,
my bags were among the first dozen at baggage claim and I quickly strode
through the archway marked “nothing to claim”. One of the
security guards said something in Russian, but I hardly noticed and stupidly
continued on through. A second security
guard stepped in front of me and repeated the same word that I could only
imagine was some word meaning stop. I
came to an abrupt halt, looking at the security guard in front of me with wide
eyes, then at the two sitting to my left, and back again. “I don’t
speak Russian,” I managed to say in Russian.
The two to my left exchanged an
incredulous look and the other repeated to them that I didn’t speak
Russian. “Put your bag here,” said the
one who had stopped me, indicating my absurdly large bag.
I did as I was told and asked, “All?”
indicating my other bags.
“No,” said the same guard. “Just one.”
I rolled my other bags to the
opposite side of the scanner and waited for my apparently sketch-looking luggage and the go-ahead to
enter Russia for the first time.
My first sight before I had
entirely left security was a glamorous blonde woman watching expectantly and
holding a piece of printer paper with my name boldly printed across it.
I grinned mostly out of relief
and she smiled back. This was my first
impression of my principal.
As we left the airport together
I saw a man in a track suit leaning disinterestedly against the wall holding a
somewhat crumpled sign that said “Language Link” in one hand and his smart
phone, which was receiving a good deal more attention, in the other. I was happy with my choice as I followed my
principal out into the open air as she asked happily about my flight.
After much effort, we got my
bags into the small car that my school uses and the three of us, including our
driver, took off down the highway.
In traffic leaving the airport
I had more than enough time to take in my surroundings. My driver and principal spoke amongst
themselves in Russian, though my principal sent questions my way at polite
intervals. Russian songs played on the
radio, interrupted every now and again by Russian commercials. All the billboard around us were written in
Russian advertising products I had never seen before. But it certainly wasn’t the first time I had
heard or seen Russian. I wondered to
myself when it would really feel like I was in Russia.
“I’m sorry,” my principal
turned to face me, speaking in a hushed voice, “our driver cannot without a
cigarette.”
I watched as he took both hands
off of the wheel and took several unhurried tries to light his cigarette. The end lit up bright orange as he smoked and
I stared at it with a strong fascination as though I had never seen a cigarette
before. It appeared that it had just as
much of his attention as well and he filled the cabin with feathery strands of
smoke that lazily made their out the only slightly cracked window. With each drag he exhaled the smoke in one
breath and the next was a breathy cough that, if it persisted, he would wash
down with another drag. For some reason,
by the end of that cigarette, the butt of which he lowered his window in order
to toss, I realized I was not home anymore.
A blur followed. We entered Dzerzhinskiy (also spelled sans
the final “i”) between their nuclear reactor that sat sleepily idol and lifeless
looking blocks of apartments. Apartments
seemed to be the only thing that the city had besides these three reactors and
all of them looked alike. Each time the
car would slow in the slightest to take a turn I was sure that this apartment, even though it looked
just like that apartment, was to be
mine.
And of course, eventually, one
of them was.
My principal helped me drag my
bags up to my apartment, while our driver had another cigarette, and at some point
I began unpacking. Her husband came to
set up the wifi, but the router didn’t work.
She went to buy a pillow. I made
tea. I know all of these things
happened, but I can’t tell you in what order.
It had been too long since I had slept.
My principal told me that I should call the head teacher once I was less
tired and he would show me to the school.
I’m sure I nodded or indicated understanding of some sort, and I was
left in a depressingly dirty and empty apartment, with only the wallpaper to
make me laugh (and only at how absurd it was).
My phone rang for a
split-second before going silent once more and the screen informed me that the
head teacher had tried to call me. Not
being able to decide if it was an accident or not, I called him back and,
somehow, agreed that after my shower I would power through the day and go see
the school and the city.
Did you know you’re expected to
hold the shower head the whole time?
There is no place to hang it up. I’m
not a fan.
The head teacher took me the “scenic
route”, but I didn’t actually expect it to be scenic. But after less than five minutes we turned a corner to see golden onion domes in the distance.
And before I knew it we passed Dzerzhinskiy's eternal flame. Here the head teacher had some sort of interesting facts to share, but my mind only had enough power to watch for the flame, dim in comparison to the bright sun.
I had already seen pictures of the monastery, though I didn't expect the real thing to look as brilliant as angles and Photoshop could make a photo look. How wrong I was. The path we walked clung to the edges of a lake and as the path dipped down slightly the surrounding trees thinned out enough for us to glimpse the monastery across the lake.
Entering the complex I knew I couldn't go inside the building with my hair uncovered, but I was surprised at the women who could go inside. A woman, probably in her mid-forties, passed me in a bright yellow dress that never even dreamed of reaching for her knees and a matching translucent scarf that was wrapped haphazardly about her hair that cascaded down her back well passed the hem of her scarf. After this sight, the cows they used to keep the grass down didn't seem so surprising.
People of all ages walked around the pond within the complex feeding the swans, ducks, pigeons, and other assorted birds and laughing among themselves.
We passed a park full of sculptures. The clean lines carved into the white stone gave the faces of the statues a spooky look to them and added a contrast to the wooden cross on the back of the sculpture of Jesus.
"Now, I'm taking you through the alley of lovers, or lover's alley," he announced. I wished he wouldn't have commented. I stood an awkward distance from him until i was assured that "Lover's Alley" or whatever the best translation of it was not an apt name. After passing a soccer field and a school on one side and watching a bulldozer spew pollution into the air on the other, I decided it was appropriately un-romantic. I still didn't speak for a while.
The final thing we passed was explained to me, I'm fairly sure. But the afternoon had worn on and I was fading quickly. I only remembered to snap a picture because I thought about the unlikelihood that my parents would have let me crawl all over rockets as a child.
