Maly Goes to The Motherland Day 1
I thought since my trip to Russia has been crazy so far I might share the experience with you all!
Well it has been such an experience so far, European countries have tended to be all quite similar but Russia is a completely different story. I flew back to Italy for 10 days to visit my parents, I used to live in Italy but I left at 17 to study at University in England, all 3 of us then began the trip to the Motherland. We flew to Frankfurt which took an hour, then had to wait around 5 hours for the flight to Siberia.
I've been to Germany quite a few times but you never ceased to be amazed by how punctual everything is, every bus will arrive at the exact minute it says. We went out of the airport to go have some food but were quite sad to find the only place that was open was an Italian restaurant (coming from Italy -_-;) but we managed to get a good old German schnitzel and I had a Spezik (unsure how to spell it Coca-Cola + Fanta). ~]Pro German Toilet Video[/url] ~ When I turn a tap, I expect water to come out...
When we got to Franfkurt Airport we got 3 hours delayed, but we went up to the shopping area, it was upstairs so you had to go the "escalator" and some bloke was trying to be clever and get the trolley with his suitcases on the moving escalator.
I thought it was quite original but my Dad was like watch out he could fall back but infact the escalator stopped because of the wait, I ran up the non-moving stairs quickly to take his "oh shit" face, he wasnt amused but hell he was stuck! He had to then climb over the trolley and lift his suitcases which were obviously ridiculously heavy. As we walked my dad just kept pointing at him and laughing, so evil but the bloke was obviously trying to play it cool.
Whats worse is I bet he felt really annoyed to see right at the top of the escalator were infact trolleys which you could use on this level! That's what you get if you try to be too clever! ~ Russian Tries to Be Clever Photo1 | Photo 2
When they flight was ready (finally) we got on and seated, I've never been on such a huge plane, it had 9 seats per row and it was quite exciting! When i was seated I took some quick photos, and my god are russian serious.
It was obviously a plane full of Russians, and it looked like they were preparing for the electric chair they were ALL completely serious I tried to smile to sort of say, "hey look im taking your photo" but they just became even more serious and you don't want an angry russian especially on a plane for 7 hours where you can't escape! ~ Serious Russians Photo 1
The flight was alright until I needed to go to the toilet, so I went to the front of the plane to go, as I came out the russian hostess comes and spams me in russian, she seems pretty pissed but then when I say "nie gavayu parruski" (dont speak russian - yea!) she then becomes calm (why is russian so aggressive??) and says this is the "1st class toilet". 1st class toilet what the hell is that? I've been to many toilets in my life if thats supposed to be first class I wasn't impressed.
1st class on planes is such a joke? What do they get a curtain and different coloured seats. 1st class toilet indeed, its a bloody necessity, whats next " im sorry you cant breathe here this is 1st class air"?? I prefer 2nd class you get fitter hostesses, the 1st class are always some old women who have reached the height of their career as hostesses (they can breathe 1st class air).
Well with the first few hours of the journey over we left at 10pm CET (after 3 hour delay) and russia is +5 CET so we'd arrive late morning. At 1am CET when everyone has finally got to sleep they decide to bring us food. Thanks. It was an ok meal the bread was probably the best part of it. Finally they go away and I managed to get like an hours sleep.
With about 5 hours of the 6 and a half gone we then remember we have MORE FORMS to fill in. This is the most ridiculous thing about Russia, how much paperwork you have to fill out. We have to get an official invitation from the party/family whatever to be able to apply for VISA, you have forms to fill out then on the plane we have to fill out a IMMIGRATION form another official document then the next day we ended up having ANOTHER form which was a registration to prove you went to where you said you were going to.
It just takes the piss, I feel like im applying for asylum or im a psychopathic murderer. Anyway we finally land in the Aiport at 5am our time, 10am Novosibirsk time.
As we begin to relax we then have passport control and have to give in our immigration form and show our visas. Now passport control is normally quite easy you maybe wait 10-15 mins MAX at an Airport especially big ones with lots of flights. This was just one flight and it took us TWO HOURS to get through pasport control.
My parents and I just could not believe it. It made me think about Russia now saying to UK it will cause problems with VISAS for British officials travelling to Russia, if this is them NOT causing a problem I would love to see Russia making a problem!
The Passport control had no particular system, no queues, people seemed picked at random a bit like a slave buying with people trying to look fit and healthy and ready to make the motherland a better place. It looked like a passport control like you have on a motorway, and the russians continued to be blank faced and seemed to accept the fact this was taking ageeeeeeeeesssss! ~ Passport Control Photo1.
Finally we got to our luggage now around 12am Russian Time, it was on the slowest conveyer belt I have ever seen, i've seen ones at the supermarket go faster. Picked up our luggage and then oh look another check this time for our luggage and passports. Unfortunately we were confused over the ticket we needed to present and my mum is easily stressed.
We showed the russians ( who were not officially dressed, they could be some russian just having a laugh) our ticket from the plane and they just pushed it away and kept saying "BIGLET BIGLET, TICKET TICKET" this is our ticket "TICKET TICKET" look mate we don't have any other tickets, then my mum is getting stressed pulling all these papers out and he keeps pushing it away TICKeT BIGLIET, then my dad just cooly presents the right tickets, we'd warned my mum not get arguementative.
She has a habit of saying "I'm a member of the British Empire" too much when people order her to do stuff and likes to fight and write angry letters to members of the British goverment, my dad and I actually say that to her when she's moaning "Well this is ridiculous, I'm going to complain" we just reply go and write a letter and stop moaning.
We finally get outside and my brother is waiting, FINALLY We're in the mother land. We step outside and hey its a barren wasteland, we got in his car and set off apart from my brother lost the ticket to show he had paid for parking and guess what? They decided he had to fill out... Another FORM! Woo hoo!
As he was doing that I stepped out of the car because I noticed what the Airport looked like, as you can see in [url=http://www.sk-gaming.com/membergallery/405289/comments/305059/ the Airport still needs a bit of work. I might be old fashioned but when I see an airport I expect it be finished being built -_-; As we drove off we noticed my brother had a big crack in his windscreen and the seatbelt didnt work, I was told not to laugh when we visited his home but hell this place is amazing.
We noticed the roads have no markings, and people were fixing the roads with no cones. Everyone seems to have a broken windscreen, so I joked to my brother when my mum was moaning about it "your not a true russian unless you've got a broken windscreen, the more broken glass the better"
What a story and I've only just arrived! If people are interested Ill try to write about each day with some photos and maybe videos! :D