Heading Back to Moscow

My last full day in Charles Town and I’ve pretty much accomplished everything I needed to do here.  The biggie was getting our taxes done and filed.  Fortunately TurboTax has become much easier to use and once you get all the paperwork in order, all that is left is to enter the data.  It took about eight hours from start to finish over a three-week period and I just pushed the button to eFile everything.

To celebrate, I cleaned the kitchen and sunroom since it was raining too hard to go for a long walk; I figured this would be a good way to work up a sweat.  The best part was being able to use the Swiffer once again.  Haven’t really used it since Bahrain but it still works well and makes both our wood and tile floors sparkle.  I washed all the area rugs and everything looks swell.  Colin and Meagan left today for Florida but when they come back, they’ll return to a spick and span kitchen.

I’ll do a Skype walk thru with Cindy to make sure I’ve gotten everything that she needs in Moscow packed and ready to haul back.  I’m taking the scenic route back to Moscow, via Houston. Believe it or not, it was cheaper to go from here to Houston on Continental connecting to Singapore Airlines to Moscow than it would have been to take the non-stop from Dulles to Moscow.  If the connection works well it should be a pleasant flight.

I had some very long flights from Singapore to Seoul to San Francisco to Charlotte to Dulles, all in one very, very long day.  The two Singapore Air flights were full, every seat taken.  I was seated next to a three hundred pound Indian man who never soiled his cutlery since he ate everything with his hands.  Every time I would move my arm on the shared armrest, he would take the space.  He consumed six beers on the six-hour flight and then proceeded to expel the carbonation via foul gas.  It was a delightful flight.  I had forgotten that this flight is called the Bombay Bomber since it is the cheapest way for Indians to get to the USA.  There were many, many families that simply let their male children run wild.  There must have been at least ten or twelve pregnant women who, judging from their size, were going to the USA to have anchor babies.   Once we got to Seoul I made a beeline to the Singapore desk and had my seat changed.  The next leg to SFO was long and sleep eluded me.  There is no easy way, even on Singapore Airlines, to sit in coach that long in any comfort.

The flight to Charlotte was in a little Airbus 319, which was also filled.  Unlike SQ, USAir and the rest of the US carriers charge for checking luggage and don’t offer any food on the flights.  This means that everyone carries everything on board, slowing down the boarding process and forcing flight attendants to gate check luggage, which they now do for free.  I think even the dumb ones have figured out how to beat the system.  Since no food is served, in addition to all the luggage they carry on, they also have to carry on enough food with them to feed a family of four.  In no time the cabin stinks of fried food, pizza and chili.  It seems that everyone has a device that plays movies so as soon as they can turn them on, they close all the shades on the windows to watch their movie, despite flying over some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.  I had hoped to have a lot of daylight in the cabin to help combat jetlag, but it wasn’t to be.  It is no longer a fun experience to fly in the USA.

Having said that, I am now fighting with Continental about my ticket to Houston tomorrow. Seems that when I went to check in on the Internet they had booked me to Houston via New Orleans getting me into Houston about ten minutes after the departure of the Singapore flight.  I’m told not to worry but they don’t have any idea what kind of trouble I would be in if I had to tell Cindy that I’m going to be a day late!

Ok, two hours later I now have confirmation of my non-stop flight to Houston tomorrow.  No assigned seat, but a confirmed reservation.  The joys of travel!

Time to go and pack everything up and get ready for my departure tomorrow. It has been a long two weeks and I’m more than eager to get back to Moscow, which really means getting back to Cindy.  We leave for an Italian vacation on Friday so I’ll have two days to rest and repack.  Can’t wait.   Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday,   Wm

Cindy's Musical Moscow

My turn for Moscow Musings, hoping that the Blogmeister will approve my submission while he is in WV!  Today is cloudy and rainy but above freezing so it is feeling more like spring.  There are actually a few crocuses blooming in the common area outside our apartment, and there is direct evidence of tulips on their way soon.  William will be able to enjoy yet another spring when he returns this week.

I decided that I needed to take advantage again this weekend of something cultural in this wondrous city.  Last Sunday I went to a piano recital with my friend Leah the math teacher (who plays piano) and we enjoyed a lovely concert of Chopin and Schubert.  We muddled our way through the program, sounding out the easy words like Chopin and Schubert, and then struggled with a phrase describing one of the pieces until we figured out it said “4 hands.”  OK, a duet.  But then the soloist came out alone and it wasn’t a duet after all … at which point we decided the line underneath said “transcription” because he had transcribed the duet into a solo.  It was a beautiful piece, as were all of the pieces he played.

Today my cultural pick was the Glinka Museum: http://www.glinka.museum/eng/index_eng.html

Glinka is a lesser-known Russian composer from the 19^th century – as it happens Leah and I have been practicing a sonata by him that is beautiful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Glinka

When reading about the museum, it looked to me like it would be rather esoteric with lots of manuscripts and other items of moderate interest to me and of little to no interest for a non-musician so I didn’t even invite anyone else (I was wrong; in reality almost anyone who enjoys music would probably like it).  It’s a 20-25 walk from our apartment and it was interesting to stride past all the cars that were barely crawling in the Saturday afternoon traffic.  My map studying paid off and I walked right up to it, but once I got inside I almost gave up because I was afraid everything would be in Russian.  I wandered about the lobby for a few minutes and then decided that since I was this close it would be foolish to leave, so I bought a ticket and went in.  It turned out to be mostly musical instruments, some old and some modern, and every one of the descriptions was in English as well as Russian.  Whew.  The older Russian balalaikas were cool, and I noticed there is a similar instrument called a droma that is round rather than having a triangular shape like a balalaika.

My favorite exhibits were several modern violins and violas, some of which had been winners in recent Tchaikovsky violin-making competitions.  However, I can’t figure out why someone isn’t playing these lovely instruments; it’s not like they’re so old and valuable they have to be preserved in a museum and it seems to me someone should be taking advantage of playing them.

After learning that a Russian bassoon is a brass instrument rather than a woodwind and admiring some beautiful keyboard instruments, I retrieved my coat from the friendly (not) coat-check lady and headed home.  About halfway there I came across a busser in the underground pedestrian passage playing “Summertime” on a balalaika.  So incongruous and yet somehow fitting!

Note from Wm.  It is so lovely to get a little taste of Moscow from such a gifted writer, while sitting here in Charles Town.  Can’t wait to get back on Tuesday.   Hope you all have a lovely weekend, Cindy and Wm

Singapore Suite

Singapore is a city that seems to reinvent itself every two to three years.  There is always a ‘major’ project in process and each time one is completed, ground is broken for another special addition to the city.  I have only been absent for two years, but I couldn’t believe how much the skyline had changed in so short a period of time.  When last here I could see the big ditch where they were starting construction on the new Marina Sands Hotel and Casino.  Now it is a fascinating building of three towers, housing 2500 guest rooms, with a full size city park and restaurants on the top of the towers.  The park sits higher than the Singapore Flyer, affording unbelievable views of Singapore, the harbor and on a clear day, Malaysia.

There are shopping malls and there are shopping malls and then there is the Sands Shopping Arcade.  Name a famous label, designer, brand or something you know you can’t afford, and I promise you it is there.  Shop after shop of luxury goods where places like Louis Vuitton are made to seem a bit down market.  This place has all the glitz of Las Vegas, but it also has far more charm and character.  There is the mandatory canal in the middle of the arcade but instead of gondolas they have Chinese junks paddled by kids with cone shaped hats made of bamboo.  There are about twenty restaurants, most of them signature places run by famous chefs.  I looked at one, a little bistro with a name I don’t know, and the lunches started at about $45 for two courses and the place was jammed.  It was all mind boggling to say the least.

I took a walk around the harbor to see the Merlion, the symbol of Singapore, but it was all covered in a big red box.  I thought perhaps for cleaning or repair but no, this is Singapore and as part of an art festival, they had converted the Merlion into a one suite, five star hotel!!  There is a new pedestrian bridge connecting the Marina area to the new casino.  Since this is Singapore, no ordinary bridge would do.  The new Helix Bridge is simply beautiful and so much fun to walk across, both night and day.

I don’t approve of everything that has changed in Singapore.  When I first started to come to this city I used to run every morning around the backside of the bay, past the monument to Sir Stamford Raffles and though a dense jungle of tall trees wrapped with thick vines that produced the most beautiful flowers that at times would fall with a strong breeze and end up looking like glowing Easter eggs on the green grass below.  When it rained, as it always seemed to do, you could stay dry under the trees and wait for the storm to pass while breathing in the moist perfumed air.  Today I walked that route only to discover that most of that jungle has now been bulldozed in favor of a Formula One track and related parking lots.  It breaks my heart to see this happening, especially for something that is used only once per year.  Joni was right!

A note to all of my fellow road warriors who have stayed in lousy hotels, with funny smells, weird carpeting, and frayed bed sheets.  For all those times when the water would turn ice cold just as you tried to rinse the shampoo out of your hair, when the air conditioning just stopped working on the hottest day of the year and you couldn’t open a window.  For those evenings when your dinner consisted of a box of minibar Pringles and a can of cheap beer.  For all the indignities you have suffered at hotels around the world, I offer you hope!  I have been rewarded by being upgraded to perhaps the most beautiful suite in Singapore, with endless views of the harbor and three large rooms, if you don’t count the kitchen and bathroom.  This suite is bigger than our apartment in Moscow.  It is on the Pacific Floor, which means there is a 24-hour butler, a lounge with Champagne and canapés, afternoon high tea, morning breakfast cooked to order and evening drinks and desserts.  This is the Pan Pacific, where I’ve stayed many, many times, and I must say this is the best visit yet thanks to our good friend Scott.  If only Cindy could be here to enjoy the experience, everyone here misses her, especially me.

When I hop on that long flight from Singapore to the states on Monday I’ll just sit quietly in coach and remember the three days of living like a king, and then I’ll take drugs!

That’s it for now.  Happy Weekend,  William

Penang

Well, according to the calendar it is spring.  Thus far this year I’ve had three springs, the south of France, Lisbon, and Budapest.  Today I landed in my first summer of the season!  I’m in Penang Malaysia, an island just off the coast of the mainland and mostly known for its beaches and the old colonial city of George Town, which is where I’m staying.  The flight from Moscow to Singapore was rather full so I didn’t have the luxury of a row of three to sleep in.  In fact sleep didn’t seem to be an option for me since the seat I had was always being bumped by people going to and from the bathroom.  The good news was that the flight was early so I wasn’t in the plane as long as I had thought I would be.  The bad news was that it just meant I had to hang out at the airport from 5:15am until 8:05am. 

I think Penang is Bahasa Malay for Lines.  From the minute I went to the gate for the flight until I was finally in a cab at the airport, there were nothing but lines.  Getting on the flight was not the normal Singapore efficient procedure one comes to expect at Changi Airport.  There was no explanation but it seemed apparent that they weren’t well staffed at the podium and they just called the flight and all 150 people got in line to board without any plan.  They then tried to call everyone by rows but the room was too small for everyone to rearrange themselves.  I did learn that there had been a gate change and it was a much smaller gate than they normally use.  The flight itself was fast and comfortable and we landed right on time.  The three flights ahead of us also landed on time, which meant huge, like enormously huge, lines at immigration.

The Malaysian immigration officers must have been trained by the Russians.  They take forever to process a rather simple entry into a resort town and the line moved ever so slowly.  Once though immigration I collected my luggage and went out looking for my ride to the hotel.  I had thought the hotel was sending a car but I checked carefully and my name was not on anyone’s placard.  So I went over and got on the line to purchase a taxi voucher, which is needed to get a taxi in all of Malaysia’s airports.  Finally got to the head of the line only to be told that I had to have cash, not credit.  This meant having to go over to the one moneychanger and getting in that line to get some money.  Back to the taxi line and finally got my voucher which then allowed me to go get on line outside in the heat with about fifty other people waiting for the taxi.  It took one hour of just standing there peeling off layers of clothing as I sweat though everything I had on.  Finally it was my turn and up comes a fifteen-year-old Proton, a locally made car.  The driver told me that it is like that every day, they make the taxi cabs wait about ten minutes from the airport and then only allow seven cars to go and when all seven have picked up fares and departed they then release another seven.  What a system!

My hotel was about a thirty-minute ride from the airport and the car of course had no AC, but I was happy to be in anything that was putting a distance between the airport and me.  We pulled up to the hotel and two bellhops came to get my luggage and escort me into the cool lobby and reception area.  No lines, just me and I was already planning my hot shower.  Not to be!  It seems I had no reservation so for the next twenty minutes we tried to call the person who I’m to meet with and who I thought had made my reservation.  The lovely receptionist even called the other hotel that had been recommended to me, but they had no reservation either.  I finally asked if they had a room for two nights and they did but only on the executive level, which is about $40 more per night, but I had no choice.

I was able to Skype with Cindy before taking a two-hour nap, which was very refreshing.  I now sit, sipping ice cold Lychee juice,  and wait for someone to call or write to me since the number I was given to call when I arrived remains unanswered despite half hourly calls.  Such is life on the road and I remember why I really don’t miss it.  Finally reached my contact who suggested she come by and pick me up after her 9:30pm meeting!!  I told her I would be in bed by 9:15 so this turns out to be a wasted day.  I’ll meet with her tomorrow and tour her university and then have dinner.  The allure of travel continues!

Ciao, Wm

Here Yesterday and Now I'm Gone

I’m in Moscow for only twenty-two hours, having arrived yesterday at four and I’m due to depart at two today.  We arrived in snow and traffic and it took more than an hour to get back to the apartment.  I immediately started doing laundry and we managed to get two loads washed, dried and folded before we hit the hay at ten.  

Dinner was a catch as catch can event but it turned out to be innovative and delicious.  I had read an article in the Financial Times about the proper way to prepare Cacio e Pepe pasta, a Roman favorite using only three ingredients. It is like making a risotto only with pasta and you use the water you cooked the pasta in to help finish the cooking and make it creamy.  I did the basic recipe but added roasted garlic and lemon rind, cooked together in a little olive oil. When it was almost done and creamy, I added three beaten eggs, for protein, and continued to toss it around until the egg mixture was incorporated and it was a lovely creamy picture of perfection.

We watched the BBC news and felt joy and surprise that a grandmother and grandchild were pulled to safety in Japan after nine days of being trapped in rubble.  We watched NATO turn military tanks, trucks and rocket launchers into rubble as the pounding of Libya continues.  We were saddened that Bahrain continues to round up the usual suspects and put them in jail and out of circulation.  We were angered at the media for having made the world believe that the Pearl Roundabout was some type of special square that had some mystical political significance, when in reality it is just a traffic circle that had a lovely monument to the Gulf States.  Now the Bahrainis have destroyed that symbol and we continue to protect the royal family with our silence.

It is almost time to go and it is snowing and I’ve got to prepare to march to the Metro through all the slush and water with my luggage.  Who said you can’t have fun in the winter in Moscow? 

Ciao, Wm 

Budapest

I’m here in beautiful Budapest and yet my mind is thousands of miles away.  In my last blog I said that if Bahrain remained true to form they would start to arrest ‘terrorists’ which is what they now call the peaceful protesters. They have.  Displaying a logic you can only find in the Middle East, the rulers of Bahrain ripped down the monument in the Pearl Roundabout, as though destroying the symbol of the movement would stop them in their tracks.  Instead it has incited more calls for protest.

The UN finally votes for a no-fly zone in Libya and yet they do nothing when Qaddafi and his sons speed up their plan to destroy everyone and everything in Benghazi, while his ministers say they are obeying the UN resolution.  In the middle of all of this we find that once again the USA has no consistent foreign policy that we can fall back on in times of crisis.  “In a Paris hotel room on Monday night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself juggling the inconsistencies of American foreign policy in a turbulent Middle East.  She criticized the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates for sending troops to quash protests in Bahrain even as she pressed him to send planes to intervene in Libya.”  (NYT)

And just when you think the world can’t get any nuttier, we discover that Utah has become the first state to vote to have an ‘Official State Gun’.  This must be just a test to see if a sense of humor can really help you stay sane!

Cindy has been dutifully going to her meetings and presentations at this conference while I’ve been wandering around this lovely city enjoying the architecture, markets and of course, the Danube. There is a part of me that would love to just hop on a river boat and head down river until I get to the Black Sea. 

Ciao, Wm

Moscow Mixology

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

While I was talking with those earnest high school students about colleges and universities and trying to answer their questions about which school is best in this or that, my mind wandered to an old comedy skit that Father Guido Sarducci, of Saturday Night Live fame, did about the Five Minute University.  In this wired world we live in, it only took me a minute to find the routine and I think you all might enjoy his words of wisdom. 

It has been a cold and blustery day with intermittent snow showers.  March in Moscow is a confusing meteorological mix that can vex or delight. I bundled up and took a bit of a stroll to do a little shopping for dinner. We depart tomorrow for Budapest where Cindy has a conference and I have the challenge of finding restaurants for dinner and walking around town.  We haven’t been back to Budapest since I hurt my leg, which must have been about twenty-five years ago. Cindy and I were running and I wanted to impress her with my gazelle like leaps and misjudged a barrier that I was jumping over and jammed my leg. My knee blew up like a bowling ball and it was two years before I could run again.  I shall be far more moderate this trip.

I just received a notice from the commissary that the supply truck arrives tomorrow and they wanted me to come and help unload and do inventory.  My friends will be disappointed, I’m sure, that I’ll not be in town to assist.

Things have gone from bad to worse in Bahrain. The troops forcibly removed all the protesters from the Pearl Roundabout with loss of life and very heavy casualties.  One of our dear friends who is the principal of the American High School in Bahrain got caught in some tear gas incident, even though she wasn’t near the center of the action.  The government of Bahrain has now, in addition to martial law, imposed a 4 pm curfew and has revoked the right of public assembly.  If things run true to form I expect the next step will be mass arrests of supposed ‘leaders’ of the protest movement.

Slow day occupied mostly by doing laundry in preparation for the trip tomorrow and my two-week round the world starting on Monday.  Doubt that I’ll do much in the way of writing while in Budapest, but one never knows, do one? Back to packing. 

Ciao, Cindy and Wm.