So I flew from London on Sunday 28th August. I chose to fly via BA rather than the Russian airline 'Aeroflot'. Though friends here flew it and said it was lovely, with the stewardesses dressed in bright orange!!
A few things to point out from my flight which were amusing. Firstly I was probably in the minority in terms of being British, most of the other passengers were Russian, including a school group or two proudly wearing "Oxford, England" hoodies. This meant that my stewardess was shocked when I asked for a cup of tea with my lunch! Not something they usually offered on their flights to Russia. But as I was so polite she made it specially for me.
Secondly, all of the Russians around me were on the hard liquor as soon as we took off, and we only left England at 1pm! The girl next to me was 19, as she had to show her passport and she polished off 2 bottles of red wine and 2 whisky & cokes during our flight! I found it terribly amusing but stuck to my tea.
The most irritating thing about the flight was that for a 4 hour flight, there was no entertainment system!! I've flown 5 & 6 hour flights to America and other countries and always had an entertainment system. Even the old BA system of only 2 movies per flight would suffice. Luckily I'd purchased a few magazines and had my trusty iPod to watch Ashes to Ashes on. Nothing like a bit of Gene Hunt when you're off to Russia for 4 months!!
A few things to point out from my flight which were amusing. Firstly I was probably in the minority in terms of being British, most of the other passengers were Russian, including a school group or two proudly wearing "Oxford, England" hoodies. This meant that my stewardess was shocked when I asked for a cup of tea with my lunch! Not something they usually offered on their flights to Russia. But as I was so polite she made it specially for me.
Secondly, all of the Russians around me were on the hard liquor as soon as we took off, and we only left England at 1pm! The girl next to me was 19, as she had to show her passport and she polished off 2 bottles of red wine and 2 whisky & cokes during our flight! I found it terribly amusing but stuck to my tea.
The most irritating thing about the flight was that for a 4 hour flight, there was no entertainment system!! I've flown 5 & 6 hour flights to America and other countries and always had an entertainment system. Even the old BA system of only 2 movies per flight would suffice. Luckily I'd purchased a few magazines and had my trusty iPod to watch Ashes to Ashes on. Nothing like a bit of Gene Hunt when you're off to Russia for 4 months!!
The airport I arrived in, Domodedovo was interesting. Initially on disembarking the plane I had to clamber down 3 flights of stairs to get to the immigration control. Not an easy thing to do with 2 heavy carry on bags whilst wearing heavy winter snow boots and no-one offering to help out a damsel in distress. I queued up waiting to pass through and suddenly became nervous that my visa might be wrong and I'd get sent home! I had a lovely immigration control officer who, like others in Germany & France took 2 looks at my passport photo and had a puzzled look on his face. Yes I promise it's me, if I take off my glasses and pull back my fringe you'll see!! The restrictions on UK passports mean I look nothing like my photo! But I was let in and given a migration card which I'm not to lose otherwise it's game over for me here!!
I met a girl from my university in the baggage claim area and she said that there was no rush to get to the carosel for my bag, they were "terribly inefficient" she said. So I waited about 15 minutes before going over. Due to my efficiency in bag drop off at Heathrow I'd been one of the first to put in my bags, so mine came out practically last. I received one bag and when the sign "last call for bags" came up and I hadn't received my larger suitcase (with all my essential items inside) panic set in slightly. We mumbled something in Russian to one of the security guards and he directed us to the larger luggage area, but my bag was not to be found! Another airport helper went downstairs to the plane to check if all the bags had been brought up, which they had. I tried not to worry but considering the exchange rate and how expensive things are in Russia I wasn't looking forward to using any compensation I would have got to buy only a pair of socks or something!! I went back to the carosel to do a final check and just as I got over my bag came up and onto the carosel! I breathed a masssssssive sigh of relief and ran back over to my school friend. *Phew*
We had booked a taxi to pick us up and the driver was dutifully waiting for us in the arrivals area. He spoke a little english and kept saying "small car" due to the large amount of luggage we had! 4 months in a country with summer at the moment and a freezing winter beginning in October means you need to pack a lot!! This was my first experience of Russian drivers, who don't stop for pedestrians, not even at designated pedestrian crossings. So lugging 2 suitcases and a huge Longchamp bag I made my way to the car park and nearly got run over a number of times. Welcome to Russia they seemed to be saying!
The drive to our halls was smooth and easy and it was facinating to stare out of the window at the great expanse of Russia. It was similar to arriving in North Carolina earlier this year, lots of trees and land and everything was so spread out. The cars that they drive here are at 2 extremes, there's either those with pimped out Range Rovers, Audis, Mercedes & BMWs and the occasional Escalade or those with rusting hulks that are Ladas and other Soviet cars. Amusing to say the least.
We made it to our halls in about an hour and it looked like a delapidated building site, not the welcoming site of university dormitories in the UK or US. But this was the right place and a babushka came down and babbled excitedly at us. Some of the men hanging around helped us up the stairs - yes dears they only do stairs here and it's 5 floors. Luckily we're on the 2nd floor so not too bad! We were shown to our room which is pretty basic and much like my rooms in sixth form at school and also given a tour of the floor where we met some of our new friends. We're on an international floor so there are Germans, French, Americans, Canadians, Italians and us Brits. Along with the sole Latvian.
I'll fill you in more about the halls in the next post so stay tuned.
