Early morning airport arrivals can be a bit of a hassle. My flight from London reached Moscow (DME) at a crisp 4:20 am. The initial concern a traveler has at this time is that any of the airport goodies you were hoping for, even if there, are now closed. No SIM cards. No information desk. Not even some guy trying to sell me a hotel. Just a few cabbies knowing they’re about to hit their payday. Oh well.
I’ve mentioned it before, but the journey from airport into town is one the biggest hurdles you’ve got to get across. I had two plans for DME- get a hold of my hostel, and they would arrange a fixed-price taxi for me, and let me know his number and car lot (this was agreed upon previously with hostel manager Yaroslav). Back up plan was public transport. I’d take the train into town, then the metro the rest of the way, and walk the final bit.
Well…DME wifi is a tease. It connects, but all servers down. It’s no-go. That’s pretty annoying. Well, so usually I get ahold of a SIM card (or even ask somebody to borrow their phone!) and call ahead. Cue the immense lack of humans in this airport at 4:30 am. It appears the pre-arranged taxi option was fading. So time for the train, right?
Not quite. The train is, for reasons unknown to everybody (even the couple NON taxi people) not working right now. It should be up and going “sometime today”. Hmm…ok. I guess it’s time for the taxi. Naturally everybody is quoting me fairly high prices to get into town (granted, it is pretty early, and that costs more everywhere, but at least I had a reference price. After much arguing with random taxi guys, in comes Alec the cabbie. He tells me that he’ll do my price of 1000. I confirm, he agrees. I confirm again “da, da”. Alrighty, let’s give this a whirl.
Alec is a short, thin, white haired guy, who speaks pretty good english. I had the chance to practice Russian with him a little bit, and my accent was just enough to get me into trouble making him think I speak Russian (Pimsleur tapes are really, really good, but more on that later). He was pleasant enough and we got along fine. The drive is smooth highway driving for most of it, then in Moscow proper we hit a random swath of traffic. Out of nowhere, Alec, this short, nice man, becomes irate and is quite literally shouting into his windshield. “7-8, is OK, but 5 and 30 o’clock, %*$*@!”. In one surpsrinigly quick sequence of arm movements, Alec slams the wheel and reaches for his phone. I’m expecting him to call his taxi company, or something, but within half a second….
He plays clash of clans. I don’t know why, but this entire last 10 seconds struck me as hilarious. It was so fast and deliberate, as if done daily. The traffic clears up and reveals the source: a road maintenance vehicle somehow had it’s drivers side tire almost bent in half, with no other vehicles damaged in sight- I literally have no clue how that could happen. Alec tells him off as we pass, and off we go. Here comes the fun part.
On arrival near my hostel, Alec explains that 1000 rubles was the cost to get into his cab, and now I have to pay for the trip. Hmm, well, I was half expecting this, but that’s a new one to me. I was pretty annoyed, and we commenced arguing over prices. 5000…1000…4500…1000…yelling in russian at me…ok 1200…40000…Niet…4000 or else…?... There was an exchange of angry hand motions that concerned me slightly and I started to understand I wasn’t getting out of here without giving him a decent price. We eventually settled on 2500…which is about $36 USD, which for about an hour long cab ride, isn’t too bad. Looking back, based on the interaction as a whole, I actually don’t view Alec as twisting anything- I think it was an actual mixup about how his cab worked. I left the cab frustrated, and feeling a little sorry for what ended up seeming like a genuine miscommunication between the two of us.
It’s funny how your first moments in a country will start to affect your outlook. There was a moment where I thought “God I hate Russia”, and I haven’t even been here 2 hours, or seen anything this beautiful city had to offer. But we all do it. We draw conclusions, we get angry and start thinking irrationally. Cue Yaroslav, the Faso Hostel manager.
A breath of fresh air. Even at 6 am, this hostel was so welcoming to me, said it was no problem to go ahead to my dorm room and crash. This doesn’t always happen. Imagine getting there this early, having to store your stuff, and leave (here’s looking at you Barcelona). Understandably, a part of hostel policy, and it’s before check in, I get it, I get it. But it’s really nice to have somebody bend the rules for you, even when undeserved. Already, I’m prone to that experience-based judgment, and starting to enjoy Russia more. So fickle.
After I crashed for a while…OK a long while…I showered and cleaned up. Then I hit up Red Square (5 minute walk). The pictures in my album will do a better job showing all that part off (it was so beautiful- going back tomorrow fro Kremlin tours), but I wanted to bring the attention to how quickly we can make judgments on places. Even after traveling all over the world, my experiences can still so easily be dictated by difficult situations. Truth is- taxis are always pricey, airports are always far away, and 4:20am is always, always a terrible time to get in.
In every destination, there will be guys like Alec- who have a job to do, and are trying to make money, whether dishonestly, or honestly but there’s miscommunication. And in every destination, there are guys like Yaroslav- a genuine, nice guy who’s pretty excited to be running a brand new hostel (I’ve already obtained the job of advice-giver/new ideas guy). The issue is our perspective. This place has so much to offer, and my perspective needs to maintain an even keel. If you travel mentally prepared for these situations, it won’t surprise you, and hey, they’re just travel stories. If you don’t let negative experience taint your perspective, you are guaranteed to have a better time than letting it get you down. There’s probably some sub-profound application to everyday not-traveling, and I’ll go ahead and say “yes, I agree”. So with that- I’m off to bed, and going to have a great time at the Kremlin tomorrow! Will keep everybody posted, and check out the pictures in the album!!
-BK
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I've heard it said before that Texas is 'God's Country'. I usually passed that off as good 'ol Texan egocentricity (come on, you know it's true!), but the roads I travelled today revealed nothing but huge, open expanses. It all felt so big, and I felt very...very small. I guess that kind of countryside is God-like, so I'll give them that.