Made it to Moscow...

I arrived in Moscow yesterday, breezed through passport control and settled down to wait for luggage. For a while, it seemed as if the local baggage handlers had taken lessons from their colleagues in Durango, but when the luggage finally arrived, it arrived in a small tsunami.

My driver was, unsurprisingly, absent in the crowd of people meeting new arrivals, and as I moved through that group, shrugging off offers of "Taxi, mister?" that came at me as thickly as mosquitos in a Florida swamp, I gave whoever was supposed to meet me 15 minutes to make himself known, at which point I was going to take matters into my own hands and buy a ride to my sister-in-law's. I ended up spending my own money.

I was greeted at the door by my mother-in-law, who frankly looked marvelous. We quickly caught up, I showed her pictures from home, and soon Alla came home from work.

The evening passed quickly, and I felt the tug of sleep around 9 pm. Six hours later, I awoke and sat down to finish the outstanding translation. Later, Alla and I went out to buy some groceries, we all had lunch, and I set off via Metro for the hotel.

As I checked in, it occurred to me that the last time I saw my credit cards was at the Atlanta airport. A quick search of my luggage did not turn them up. An attempt to get hold of a couple of banks via the Internet succeeded, but their instructions for reporting lost or stolen credit cards involves the use of 800 numbers, which don't work overseas.

Pay phones have gone the way of the dodo bird here in Moscow, where about 2/3 of the population is walking around on the street with their cell phone plastered up against an ear (the other third, it seems, is jacked into an MP3 player of some kind).

I had originally come here to send the translation, but apparently, I did not successfully copy the file to the thumb drive that's in my pocket. (I have to stop doing that.) So what I think I'm going to do is go back to the hotel, get the file on the drive, get medieval with my belongings (do a thorough search for those cards), and then come back here to send off my work.

Then I'll have a little free time to walk around, although it's uncomfortably cold in Moscow today (and I, doofus, forgot to pack a sweater).

Cheers...

P.S. In all the excitement at Atlanta, I forgot to mention that Thursday was my sixth "posting" birthday here on LiveJournal. If my LJ was a kid, it'd be going to school!

Adventures in Moscow...

As I mentioned, making a phone call around here is pretty difficult unless you panhandle the use of someone's cell phone. As this Internet cafe is near the old telephone and telegraph building, I stopped by there to make a couple of calls, only to find that they only sell phone cards that work pretty much only from their phone booths (or from one's home phone).

I called Alla to make sure my wallet hadn't fallen on the floor somewhere in her apartment, which she pretty much confirmed while speaking to me (it's a small apartment). I then called the Amex number that the hotel's concierge gave me, and then the number the Amex answering machine gave me to cancel my card. I'll check back with Amex from Baikonur to make sure this was done. I'll have to send email back home to have someone take care of the CapitalOne and Wells Fargo cards.

I returned to the room and, after doing a first-class job of searching my stuff (to no avail), turned to the computer and found that when, in preparation for coming here to send my translation, I had moved all the files from the thumb drive to my computer, I proceeded to erase said files from my computer and then copy the file to be sent into the freshly emptied directory. (Fortunately, I only actually copied the files from the thumb drive, so they did not end up in the celestial bit bucket, but I digress...)

So, in the brief time I've been here, what's new?

Well, there's lots of construction going on in the area of the hotel, that's for sure. And the video pirates are back, having set up shop at the corner of Kuznetskiy Most and Petrovka. I am refraining from buying any of their wares, as the last item I "sampled" (purely for the sake of knowledge, mind you) turned out to be of very poor quality.

Now, after a quick stop to send email, I need to figure out where to eat!

Cheers...