Happy Solstice
While we enjoy the longest day, Colin et al. in Wellington will enjoy the early evening as they try to catch up on sleep. They arrived save and sound and are having a grand adventure.
Cindy and I are having our own little adventure today. We had thought this would be a very relaxed day to prepare for our trip to Tallinn and Riga. We went to the embassy to pick up our passports and lo and behold, they had not done anything right. We had asked for a double entry visa plus the exit visa, instead they only issued the exit visa, which means if we were to go to Tallinn tomorrow; we would not be allowed to reenter Russia! We have already prepaid 1200 non-refundable dollars for this trip and now we are not at all sure if we can go. The two people at the embassy that handle visas are both Russian and their first reaction was that it was our fault that they didn’t do what we wanted done. Cindy insisted, in the nicest possible way, that she had filled out the forms correctly. This drove the clerk to the file cabinet and she got out the forms Cindy had filled in and guess what, Cindy was CORRECT and there it was in writing and the clerk had to admit it was her fault.
I have to return to the embassy at five to see if they have been able to correct their errors, if not, we are stuck in Moscow with no way to cook for the remaining eight days before our flight to Dulles. This must be the Day of Aggravation in Moscow because we have been in a constant state of aggravation since our trip to the embassy. We decided to do something to get our minds off this mess so we walked over to Red Square and I got in line to buy tickets for entry to the Kremlin. We had never been inside the gates of the Kremlin before and didn’t want to depart Russia without having seen all the cathedrals, official buildings, and magnificent gardens. The line to purchase tickets was typically Russian, one way to get in the door and the same door for people to get out so it was always a bottleneck. I stood there waiting my turn and knew that the woman behind me was jockeying for position to jump in front of me. Just as the man ahead of me was about to leave, I gave the woman a wonderful head fake and then a hip check and she never knew what hit her as I got my ticket.
We then had to get in a line to go through security and if I hadn’t purchased the tickets I might have rethought this whole thing. We finally get through and then the guard tells me my bag is too big and I have to go outside the gates, down two flights of stairs and over to the baggage check place to pay to store my little SDSU bag, more aggravation! I finally got back to the security lines and got though to the gateway to the Kremlin, where I noticed that about 80% of the women tourist all had bags much larger than mine. More aggravation.
The hassles were well worth enduring since it truly is one of the most beautiful places in all of Moscow. Six cathedrals, one more grand than the other all around this lovely square that is guarded by the Tsar’s Cannon, which is right next to the Tsar’s Bell. Everything about the Kremlin is on such a grand scale that it is hard to imagine all the work that must have gone into the establishment of this place. We also visited a museum which had a special show of the work of Fabregé eggs and other examples of his jewelry. We had a pleasant stroll in the lovely gardens before heading back towards the apartment.
Just back from the embassy. We raced over there to catch them and when we finally got to the elevators they were not working so we had to figure out how to find the stairs to the third floor. More aggravation. They fixed everything because it was their fault and they didn’t want to live with that mistake and they assure us that we’ll be allowed back into Russia on Sunday!
So, it looks like we’ll be on our way to Tallinn in the morning, which means no blogs until next Monday. Enjoy the rest. Cindy and Wm.
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