Internet café...
Aug. 22nd, 2008 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpAs the trilingual interpreter on the plane, I was invited to sit in the first-class cabin with American, Russian, and French management.
It was a fairly easy assignment.
But it was a day filled with delays. First, the incoming flight from Moscow landed late. Then, more time was lost to agree on a plan to deal with the density altitude1, as the temperature in Baikonur yesterday did not allow the plane to take off with enough fuel to reach Moscow. So in addition to leaving behind schedule from Baikonur, we were delayed by the need to land in Samara to refuel.
We got to the Marriott fairly late, but not so late as to not eat dinner. I joined the ILS folks in a walk up Tverskaya to a steak house named Goodman, and had an excellent dinner.
Upon returning to the hotel room, I began to get ready to crawl between the covers for some rack drill. As I turned back around from hanging up my trousers, something caused my eyes to lock onto the pile of stuff that had just come out of my pockets. There, next to my Moleskine pocket notebook, was my missing thumb drive!
I must have stared at the thing for about 10 seconds, with the irrational thought twirling in my head that someone else in the room had surreptitiously placed the device among the other items. How the drive had ended up in the pocket of the trousers I had worn earlier in the evening is a mystery, but in the final analysis, it's nice to know the drive is not out in The World™ somewhere, but with me, where it belongs.
After breakfast this morning, I joined Peter and Keryn on a walk to a store on Tverskaya called Елисеевский (Eliseevskiy) where the ILSers picked up some last-minute items, and even I bought some chocolate bars.
I am in an Internet café called Pronto, located on the second floor of a building just up the street from the Moscow book store. The "o" in Pronto is a stylized coffee bean, but then again, it seems every other store on Tverskaya is a coffee shop of some kind. There are not many other patrons here right now, and the lighting is subdued. It may also be among the increasing number of businesses that I've noticed do not allow smoking on the premises.
I was happy to find this place, as it is an economical alternative to the outrageous charge the hotel insists upon. Thirty minutes cost 70 rubles, or about $2.80, which is about twice as much as I used to pay at the internet café on Kamergersky Pereulok a few years ago.
The game plan for the rest of the day is to walk around this part of town for a while, then get back to the hotel in time to check out and then Metro to my mother-in-law's. Sometime during the day, I should also make sure my ride to the airport tomorrow morning is assured (and I'm working on a backup plan in case that alternative doesn't work out, involving the Metro and what amounts to a commuter train, or электричка, as it's called locally, out to Sheremetyevo).
I've got a few minutes left; I think I'll see if there's any updated information on the trains to the airport.
Cheers...
[1] How high you are in terms of atmospheric density, as opposed to physical altitude. The hotter it is, the less dense the atmosphere, and the less able an airplane is to climb.
It was a fairly easy assignment.
But it was a day filled with delays. First, the incoming flight from Moscow landed late. Then, more time was lost to agree on a plan to deal with the density altitude1, as the temperature in Baikonur yesterday did not allow the plane to take off with enough fuel to reach Moscow. So in addition to leaving behind schedule from Baikonur, we were delayed by the need to land in Samara to refuel.
We got to the Marriott fairly late, but not so late as to not eat dinner. I joined the ILS folks in a walk up Tverskaya to a steak house named Goodman, and had an excellent dinner.
Upon returning to the hotel room, I began to get ready to crawl between the covers for some rack drill. As I turned back around from hanging up my trousers, something caused my eyes to lock onto the pile of stuff that had just come out of my pockets. There, next to my Moleskine pocket notebook, was my missing thumb drive!
I must have stared at the thing for about 10 seconds, with the irrational thought twirling in my head that someone else in the room had surreptitiously placed the device among the other items. How the drive had ended up in the pocket of the trousers I had worn earlier in the evening is a mystery, but in the final analysis, it's nice to know the drive is not out in The World™ somewhere, but with me, where it belongs.
After breakfast this morning, I joined Peter and Keryn on a walk to a store on Tverskaya called Елисеевский (Eliseevskiy) where the ILSers picked up some last-minute items, and even I bought some chocolate bars.
I am in an Internet café called Pronto, located on the second floor of a building just up the street from the Moscow book store. The "o" in Pronto is a stylized coffee bean, but then again, it seems every other store on Tverskaya is a coffee shop of some kind. There are not many other patrons here right now, and the lighting is subdued. It may also be among the increasing number of businesses that I've noticed do not allow smoking on the premises.
I was happy to find this place, as it is an economical alternative to the outrageous charge the hotel insists upon. Thirty minutes cost 70 rubles, or about $2.80, which is about twice as much as I used to pay at the internet café on Kamergersky Pereulok a few years ago.
The game plan for the rest of the day is to walk around this part of town for a while, then get back to the hotel in time to check out and then Metro to my mother-in-law's. Sometime during the day, I should also make sure my ride to the airport tomorrow morning is assured (and I'm working on a backup plan in case that alternative doesn't work out, involving the Metro and what amounts to a commuter train, or электричка, as it's called locally, out to Sheremetyevo).
I've got a few minutes left; I think I'll see if there's any updated information on the trains to the airport.
Cheers...
[1] How high you are in terms of atmospheric density, as opposed to physical altitude. The hotter it is, the less dense the atmosphere, and the less able an airplane is to climb.
