![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Saddling up...
Oct. 5th, 2006 05:34 amIt's a little after 5:30 am as I type these words. I've just come back from the restaurant downstairs where, to my pleasant surprise, the breakfast buffet turns out to be included in the cost of the room. Also where, to my chagrin, the cost for one hour of wireless access is 400 rubles, or about $16.00 (though for just twice that amount, you can purchase 24 hours of wireless access). About the only good thing you can say about the hourly rate is that it is only 30% higher than the cost of a pint of beer at the hotel's bar! (For the record, BTW, the current exchange rate is about 26.60 rubles per dollar.)
Chagrin has been a recurring theme since arriving yesterday. The money that I fed into a special vending machine yesterday to refill my cell phone turns out to have been properly credited to a wrong phone number. I say "properly," because the number I entered on the machine's screen belongs to a SIM card that I own, but not the SIM card in my cell phone.
How did that happen? Well, the carrier's rules say that if an account remains dormant for 6 months, it is cancelled. As it had been almost a year between the end of the last campaign in 2005 and the first one this year, I bought a new account "package" while in Baikonur at the beginning of this past July. That's the SIM card that's in my phone.
Yesterday, after a fruitless attempt to find out the phone number assigned to the SIM card in my phone, it occurred to me to look at the new account information that I had taken along with me, which helpfully indicated the phone number. The old phone number, as it turns out.
A closer look at that information would have revealed that, by dialing a certain code, I could have found out the number of my phone, which I did after returning from town and finding that no credit had been added to my account. Quoting Charlie Brown, "AAaaarrgghhhh!"
Ah, well, it wasn't that much money.
Hard lessons aside, I suppose it was a good thing that I got stuck out here in the Novotel. First of all, it's not a bad hotel; frankly, I like the rooms here a lot better, as they are furnished in a more modern style and the overall impression is one of openness and light. The windows and walls are well-insulated, too, as no noise from the street or the airport penetrated into the living area.
Second, I was forced out of my comfort zone. Finding out how to economically get into town and back was something of a mini-adventure. It turned out, for example, that the "Kuznetskiy Most" station was half-closed when I arrived (you could enter the station, but not leave), so everyone getting off at "Kuznetskiy Most" had to act as if they were transfering to the "Lyubyanka" station in order to gain the street. When I did so, I came out directly in front of the old KGB (now FSB) building.
Between the time I went into the Internet cafe to tap out my previous post and coming back out, it had begun to rain, and the rain continued all the way back to the metro station, greeting me like an old friend when I again surfaced from underground at "Planernaya."
The lines for the "route taxis" intimidated me at first, until I realized that the really big line was not for the 49 taxi. I got in line for the 49 and struck up a conversation with the woman in front of me, to make sure I was in the right place. Despite an announced schedule of a taxi every 10-14 minutes, the wait was long enough for my jacket to become very nearly soaked before the vehicle showed up.
While I waited, enterprising freelance drivers walked up and down the line, under umbrellas, goading us into abandoning the line and going with them to the airport (for significantly more money, naturally). Our cab eventually came, and it filled quickly.
Not to take anything away from other nationalities, but I've noticed that Russians are particularly attentive to their children. As the cab was filling up, a couple with a young child of perhaps two or three years in their arms was approaching the door and there seemed to be a question as to whether they'd be able to get in or be left behind. This prompted a general hubbub among the passengers, whose collective reaction was to make room for the family, by squeezing in, by having a girl sit on her boyfriend's lap, in short, by doing what it took to make sure the child and its parents had a place to sit.
I was tired when I got in line for the cab, and even dozed a bit on the way back to the hotel. Once back, however, I seemed to perk up, and could not fall asleep despite my best efforts, though I eventually did nod off at around 11:30 pm, intent on staying unconscious until 6 am. It didn't work out that way: I woke at 4:30 am and tried to go back to sleep for half an hour until I decided it was time to get up.
The rep from the charter company will be by in about an hour to pick me up, so I better start getting myself together.
Chagrin has been a recurring theme since arriving yesterday. The money that I fed into a special vending machine yesterday to refill my cell phone turns out to have been properly credited to a wrong phone number. I say "properly," because the number I entered on the machine's screen belongs to a SIM card that I own, but not the SIM card in my cell phone.
How did that happen? Well, the carrier's rules say that if an account remains dormant for 6 months, it is cancelled. As it had been almost a year between the end of the last campaign in 2005 and the first one this year, I bought a new account "package" while in Baikonur at the beginning of this past July. That's the SIM card that's in my phone.
Yesterday, after a fruitless attempt to find out the phone number assigned to the SIM card in my phone, it occurred to me to look at the new account information that I had taken along with me, which helpfully indicated the phone number. The old phone number, as it turns out.
A closer look at that information would have revealed that, by dialing a certain code, I could have found out the number of my phone, which I did after returning from town and finding that no credit had been added to my account. Quoting Charlie Brown, "AAaaarrgghhhh!"
Ah, well, it wasn't that much money.
Hard lessons aside, I suppose it was a good thing that I got stuck out here in the Novotel. First of all, it's not a bad hotel; frankly, I like the rooms here a lot better, as they are furnished in a more modern style and the overall impression is one of openness and light. The windows and walls are well-insulated, too, as no noise from the street or the airport penetrated into the living area.
Second, I was forced out of my comfort zone. Finding out how to economically get into town and back was something of a mini-adventure. It turned out, for example, that the "Kuznetskiy Most" station was half-closed when I arrived (you could enter the station, but not leave), so everyone getting off at "Kuznetskiy Most" had to act as if they were transfering to the "Lyubyanka" station in order to gain the street. When I did so, I came out directly in front of the old KGB (now FSB) building.
Between the time I went into the Internet cafe to tap out my previous post and coming back out, it had begun to rain, and the rain continued all the way back to the metro station, greeting me like an old friend when I again surfaced from underground at "Planernaya."
The lines for the "route taxis" intimidated me at first, until I realized that the really big line was not for the 49 taxi. I got in line for the 49 and struck up a conversation with the woman in front of me, to make sure I was in the right place. Despite an announced schedule of a taxi every 10-14 minutes, the wait was long enough for my jacket to become very nearly soaked before the vehicle showed up.
While I waited, enterprising freelance drivers walked up and down the line, under umbrellas, goading us into abandoning the line and going with them to the airport (for significantly more money, naturally). Our cab eventually came, and it filled quickly.
Not to take anything away from other nationalities, but I've noticed that Russians are particularly attentive to their children. As the cab was filling up, a couple with a young child of perhaps two or three years in their arms was approaching the door and there seemed to be a question as to whether they'd be able to get in or be left behind. This prompted a general hubbub among the passengers, whose collective reaction was to make room for the family, by squeezing in, by having a girl sit on her boyfriend's lap, in short, by doing what it took to make sure the child and its parents had a place to sit.
I was tired when I got in line for the cab, and even dozed a bit on the way back to the hotel. Once back, however, I seemed to perk up, and could not fall asleep despite my best efforts, though I eventually did nod off at around 11:30 pm, intent on staying unconscious until 6 am. It didn't work out that way: I woke at 4:30 am and tried to go back to sleep for half an hour until I decided it was time to get up.
The rep from the charter company will be by in about an hour to pick me up, so I better start getting myself together.
