Off on another adventure

If you could choose between visiting Cleveland, Ohio and St. Petersburg, Russia, which city would entice you more?

Why do I ask and what's the connection?

Last September, Marty attended a conference in Cleveland. He invited me to tag along (as a joke, I'm certain) but I passed on the offer.

This year, the very same conference is being held in St. Petersburg, Russia. So, what do you suppose I said when Marty asked me if I wanted to tag along on this trip? Remember, I'm the gallivanting blogger.....

Just for the record, traveling to Russia is a bit complicated, , requiring a special visa for entrance, listing exact dates of travel which one must strictly adhere to. The process requires relinquishing your passport to the Russian Consulate for insertion of the visa. So, after we returned from Europe, we headed to Washington DC with our passports in hand, along with pages of paper work detailing events in our lives, and the required photo that even scared me when I looked at it!

The whole procedure reminded me of my recent trip to Slovakia... quite unorganized and very confusing. But we managed to submit everything correctly on the first trip (Other people in the place were not so lucky), handed over the required “cash only”, and were told that the visa's would be ready the following week, on Thursday between 2:00 and 4:00. Lucky for me, Marty was able to pick up both passports with the visas attached, and he didn't mind making another 6 hour round trip!

This past Monday, Marty headed off to Scotland and I spent the week attempting to frantically learn some Russian, (which, by the way, is quite similar to Slovak except that the alphabet is Cyrillic), and taking care of all the necessary arrangements: boarding the dog, stopping the mail and newspaper, arranging a ride to the airport, ordering Russian currency and arranging a ride from the airport in St. Petersburg to the hotel.

So, Saturday morning, I took the dog to the kennel only to find that someone forgot to write his reservation in the book. Luckily, there was room for him.

I returned home to find the newspaperman shoving a paper that I had canceled into the box.

While I was taking out the trash, I spotted the mail lady delivering my mail. Luckily, I managed to stop her and mention that I had stopped the mail for the week. She said that she had no notice of any holds for the week, despite my physically going into the post office and filling out the card, but she was happy to complete my request for the rest of the week.

Then, the limo driver called to tell me that she was running late. Luckily, I had allowed extra time, and despite her being half an hour past my requested pick up time, she managed to get me to Newark airport in two hours time. Lead foot, for sure!

So, here I sit in Amsterdam airport, which, by the way, is really quite awesome. You'd think I was in a mall, complete with an art museum. Too bad I'm too tired to explore it more!

Marty met me here from Scotland, and now we begin our Russian adventure. I know about 4 words down pat, but I don't think that will get me too far! I'll be sure to keep you posted!