During the last month, we've been doing a lot of travelling and visiting. We've been very busy, and we're not done yet by far. First, our trip to St. Petersburg.
My wife has a cousin living in this city, so they invited us to see them and to be able to visit. We used some national vacations in May, and went there.
St. Petersburg is a big city, with wide streets, public transport, big buildings, etc. The city itself is pretty new, it was made around 300 years ago, and you can notice it. Even in the centre, streets are wide and nice, with lots of space. The city is beautiful, but the streets are like any other big city. Maybe the architecture resembles Paris, since lots of buildings were done by French architects.
The thing that really makes a difference is the palaces. In the centre, if you raise a stone you will find a palace. These palaces are all impressive, loaded with details, and really luxurious. We visited several of them (including the Ermitage, which doubles as huge art museum), and we did so in the right order: when we thought that we had seen the most crazy luxurious palace, the next one was always proving us wrong.
We were very lucky, and we had lots of sunny and warm days. We were told that was some kind of exception. With the palaces, several big and curious churches, museums, the streets of a big city,the water channels, the tours and the family visiting, we had a great time, and we did lots of things.
After St. Petersburg, we had two visits in Adler in rapid succession. First it was Fatima and Marius, two of our friends. Then it was my uncles, Jose and Silvia.
In both cases we played games, spent time together and had fun. But the other effect of their visit is that we finally spent some time visiting Adler, Sochi, and the places around them.
Adler is small, and we really could not offer much to visit apart from a small tour in the centre and around the coast. Sochi is bigger, and we manage to see some more things (not many, but some). Sochi really gives the impression of a small coastal city, not unlike the ones you can find in Catalunya's that are not extensions of resorts (those resemble Adler).
The best discovery was what's around these cities. We knew there were forests and excursions, and we knew that it was considered a nice area, but we had not checked personally.
We did several trips around, organized and otherwise, and now we know what's around. There is lots of very beautiful and dense forests, small rivers, lots of waterfalls, mountains and nature. It's really awesome.
Some of the places were clearly too touristic, charging you to enter an area of forest and with annoying shops and people. However, they were still very nice. We also discovered two things:
1-Most excursions spend a huge amount of time passing by small areas that produce wine, honey and other things, and make you try them. This becomes bothersome, specially when you spend too much time in then. However, its a price to pay to have a cheap excursion, and its true that the products are handmade and usually very good.
2- This one I suspected it, but we confirmed it. Culturally, lots of Russians seem to be afraid of silence somehow. In restaurants, they put music channels with very loud music. In touristic places, they sometimes put speakers and some background (or not so background) music. And when you're in a tour with a guide, the guide NEVER shuts up. They speak constantly, in a stream of words, repeating themselves, advertising stuff, explaining what's around at that moment...but without pauses if they can do so. It gets tiresome really really fast, and plenty of times you would prefer a shorter explanation and more quiet time to just enjoy the place...
Anyway, around Adler and Sochi there's lots of things to see, lots of nature, specially lots of small rivers that look awesome.
Finally, during this weekend that is ending, we went to Abkhazia.
For those who do not know about this place, Abkhazia is a region inside what's considered to be Georgia. However, this region is independent from Georgia, and considers itself another country. Russia recognises it, among other countries, but Georgia doesn't, and in general it's not officially another country. Georgia and Abkhazia made war against each other several times, and rather recently (it seems the main war was at the beginning of the 90s, but there was another one 5-6 years ago). Right now you can't cross the border between them.
Abkhazia, therefore, is a country with not many laws, and not much money. It survives for the moment, until next war. During USSR times, it was part of it, so it has buildings and stuff from that time. Between the wars, the location and all that, the country is half abandoned, half being reconstructed. However, people said it was very beautiful, and worth a visit (in Adler, we live around 8 km away from the frontier with Abkhazia).
We booked a hotel in the capital, Sukhum, and we went with Jordi Gomez, Jordi Nadal and Misha (who had the car to go there).
It's one of the most beautiful places i've ever seen.
First, the country is half abandoned. There's not many people around, much less than in the Sochi area, and you notice it. Second, since it's a poor region, there's less industry, clearly, less things going on. There's construction, and lots of places are not maintained, so there's trash sometimes, or really bad and rusted structures, but the nature is extremely clean. You don't feel the dust that covers everything in Sochi.
The water in the sea shore, and in the rivers and lakes is extremely transparent. When the place is deep, the water looks blue, as in light clean blue, incredibly intense.
The mountains are very green, and there are high peaks and awesome views. The zone lives from tourism and tours, so there are zones with some people and lots of guided excursions, but still there are looks clean and impressive.
The main road is in a very good state, much better than the Russian ones. Smaller roads are much worse, half abandoned and destroyed, but you can see that there is some effort of rebuilding, at least in the main road.
The driving is crazy in here, people go very fast, they advance people with no visibility, or with cars coming from the other side. It's also normal to find cows and goats in the middle of the road, just laying there. The buildings and structures, as I mentioned, can be half new or almost abandoned, in very bad shape. There is no security whatsoever in lots of places, and clearly if you do something stupid and hurt yourself (like jumping to the sea from one dock), well, nobody is going to stop you, and it's your problem. There is lots of surreal things. You get the feeling that most things are abandoned, and people is using ruins. Nature is clearly taking back some areas, while there's some constructions going on too.
However, even some buildings look beautiful abandoned (but not all, of course). The cities are like some kind of mixture of classical structures with some soviet buildings and lots of ruins and half-build things.
The things that are new, like some lights, buildings and roads, look very new, clean, much better than anything you can find in Sochi. The dust cloud that you can notice in Adler is nowhere to be seen in here.
In the capital, the street next to the coast was full of people, occidental-looking and apparently happy. It's a poor region, but it seems they live relatively well. The only thing is a permanent war thread, that paralyses things. It seems some buildings are abandoned because they don't want to waste resources in them to be destroyed again soon (and you can see bullet -or shrapnel- holes in some of them).
Of course, not everything is perfect. I mentioned the crazy drivers, the animals in the middle of the roads, the secondary roads in extremely bad shape, the region insecurities with Georgia...but there's also the lack of personal security, the trash, the burned and destroyed things that are common around the region, or the recommendations to not go around alone, specially if you're a foreigner...
However, the feeling we have gotten in the end is that it's an extremely beautiful area, calm, very clean, with gorgeous nature and landscapes, old ruins, and "funny" things happening around you. We liked it a lot, and we would recommend to go there, if you manage to make all the paperwork to visit it and go back to Russia and you have a local guide...
Showing posts with label Meetings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meetings. Show all posts
Sunday, 2 June 2013
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Things one notices living in Adler
These days we're in St. Petersburg, visiting relatives and the city. The place is very nice, and so far we're enjoying the trip.
This has also allowed us to see another part of Russia, a big city this time. After seeing these two sides of the country, one can start knowing what may be usual and what is just happening in Adler (or maybe in little towns in general).
First thing, i already commented it, but in Russia, looks are very important. There is clearly a lot of time and efford dedicated to it. Our apartment looks like an old palace, and other apartments in the same price range had similar styles. If they didnt resemble a palace, they resembled an executive secret apartment for lovers and parties. Practicality is ignored when there's money, and the important thing is to look impressive. More normal apartments look like anywhere else, practical and cozy.
The importance of looks also applies to women (not so much to men). Its not the same for all of them, but lots of women wear very high heels, little dresses, make up and complex hairstyles, etc. For office work it may not bother, but we were rather surprised by a hairdresser with 10cm heels, which we cannot understand how did not hurt her enough to change to slippers after the first client.
We've been told by Russian women that they're not really integrated yet at work, and people usually treat them as mere decoration in worplaces, so i guess that's part of the reason...
We can confirm that driving is rather aggressive everywhere, but i believe Adler has proven to be much worse than a big city. In here traffic seems more normal. In Adler it was easier to see people burning tires in preparation to start moving their cars at high speeds...to stop 5 meters later and let people cross the street.
There is a lot of soviet-made blocks. In Adler it was harder to see this type of building, but i've seen the same type of neighborhood in Vilnius. These buildings look in bad shape from the outside, and they seem to have been made from small cubes. You can still see the lines of union quite clearly in the outside. Inside the apartments, they can be very nice. However, any public part (elevator, stairs) are usually not in good shape. The buildings are usually tall, 15 floors or more. They are separated from one another with wide streets that serve as parking spots for the cars of the people living in them.
There is lots of poverty. Sometimes not very evident, but still there. Lots of little cheap shops, lots of shady-looking markets, lots of people with clearly low-qualified jobs. These same people seem to have had no access to good educations (lots of low-level workers here do very, VERY stupid things, specially in construction). Lots of these workers wear leather black jackets, dusty and old. Feels like some unofficial uniform sometimes. Lots of these people follow a curious clothes-conservation system. In order to avoid damage when cleaning clothes, they don't clean them. The result is....not good. In Adler it was much more noticeable, thanks to all the workers brought for the olympics, but in here we've also noticed cases like this around the city.
On the other hand, there are lots of luxury shops of one kind or another. Its easy to find jewelry shops, expensive restaurants, bosco shops (which charge a lot for any simple sports clothes), electronics, etc. You can also see lots of clients of these shops, and it seems lots of people also have a lot of money. There are lots of very expensive cars in the streets (specially in Adler, considering the total population). It seems that there is little middle class in here, just lots of lower and upper class.
There's lots of flower shops, that seem to be doing well. It's common to give flowers for lots of dates and reasons after all...
There's lots of dust in the streets. As mentioned, maybe as part of the socialist years, people pay lots of attention to personal possessions. Public things are more abandoned, and less clean. The subways in St. Petersburg are impressive, and the center is very clean. However, less turistic spots, or turistic for russians only, are more abandoned in general (Adler is very dusty).
St. Petersburg is a normal city, like Vilnius or London. Adler, in comparission, is more like the result of providing shops and services for a few hotels and resorts that happened to be there. These services needed their own houses, and more houses were build around them. It doesnt have a city feeling, or a town feeling, it's more like something that spontaneously grew, and now they're trying to adapt it so it works as a town.
Adler has a weird weather. In general, it is warm and nice, while having rainy days, more than in Spain (which is normal). However, it can be VERY windy. This winter, there were 2 days when we had strong warm winds. Walking in the street felt like being under a giant hairdrier. Temperatures went from 10 to 30 degrees, and the wind was strong enough that one of the dish antennas that we have in our apartment (and we don't use) got ripped off from its metallic hanging place. That was an extreme case, but other times it has been windy enough to make it hard to close windows.
And well, thats all for the moment, just some impressions and things we've noticed around here...
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Adulthood
For those of you that do not know yet, my wife and I are going to have a child.
This is, of course, an important step, probably one of the most important things we'll ever do. There's still some time until birth, but we'll need to prepare, be ready for it, and it will change our daily lives.
Thinking about it, we're "young" for it, at least among the people we know. We're not the only ones who have children at this age, but most people I know that have studied something in University have kids and stable couples later. That does not happen in every culture, of course.
In Russia it seems most people are married and with kids way before reaching 30. In Spain it's otherwise, with people delaying these things until they become 30. I think in Lithuania it's something in the middle of this positions, while England is closer to the Spanish situation, but slightly younger.
Of course, an important factor is the security one feels in that culture or country. Spain right now has a terrible economy, and it's hard to afford some of the things that come with stable couples and kids. However, I think that in Spain it's also very important the cultural factor.
For example, for lots of people of my generation, we passed from the need to get married to the philosophy of not getting married, and seeing marriage as a terrible thing.
I hate stupid traditions. I believe that to do things just because "it has always been done like that" it's a really bad idea. For example, the idea that when you get married you need to do a wedding where you are the centre of attention and where you spend a huge amount of money to make it as impressive as you can. I'm not saying you cannot do it, or that it's very stupid to do it. I'm saying that you should think about it, to see if it's really what you want to do, and analyse the pros and cons it has in your personal opinion. To do it because it's proper, it's what everybody does, without thinking, is stupid.
And not to do it because everybody does it is equally stupid.
Anyway, right now I believe there's people that are not getting married or having kids because they don't feel ready. They also look around and see the same thing happening to other friends, so they believe this is normal, and by that it becomes normal.
I believe lots of people are not doing these things because of a mixture of rebelling against the past traditions, the current lack of economic security, and that feeling of not being ready.
My current generation (people with similar age, similar level of studies, similar economy, etc.) has been the result of a number of coincidences that has made our lives quite easier than for other generations. We have lived in economic prosperity, with nice houses, with all this new "toys" at our reach, and I believe that we've all been...well, spoiled. Not in a bad way, but still, our lives have been relatively easy (even if some people have had it harder than others).
I believe that this kind of environment makes it easier to not have big responsibilities, or even if you have had them, to not easily think of yourself as an "adult". Well, I know I have trouble with this thought at least. It's not a matter of being immature or anything, it's just that, mentally, we all believe to be somehow in our last teenage years, or beginning of our twenties (and maybe that can be applied to everybody).
It's kind of the same reason why some hobbies are considered "childish". We put labels and categorize things, and we expect that things that we like as a child will latter seem silly, when the truth is that if we really like something, there's no reason to stop doing it, since we're the same person than before. Our tastes may change from time to time, but there are no childish hobbies, we just need to learn when can we indulge in them or not.
So, in this change from young to adult, since we're in the last teenage years, we're still having fun. We're not ready for some of those big steps that would clearly be something only an adult does.
What I mean is that sometimes we're somehow waiting for a change in our mind, that will switch into "adult" mode after that. And this is the problem. This does not happen. We're the same person at 15 that at 51. Sure, we'll have more experience at 51, and we may be wiser because of this experience (or not), but we're basically the same person. It's very well said in the movie American Beauty. The main character says that he could tell to his teenage daughter that the insecurities and problems and doubts she's having will pass away after adolescence, but he does not want to lie to her.
Therefore, while we're waiting to be adults, we try to avoid marriage, or having kids, or buying a house, or any other thing that we believe only an adult, centered, stable person will do correctly. Because we do not feel specially centered or stable sometimes, and we've been told hundreds of times this is just a phase that teenagers pass after some time.
Is this a defense of traditional things? Of course not. As I mentioned, I hate to do things just because. I'm just saying that delaying things because we're not considering ourselves "adults" is something that we should try to fight back. We won't get a sudden revelation telling us this is the right moment. We won't know with stone-written certainty that we're ready. We will not avoid contradictory thoughts about these things.
And we should get used to that and get on with our lives. I'm pretty sure everybody has had the same thoughts, maybe just in different ages. The other people we know that are considered adults by us did these things in a way that seemed they had a different mind than our own, that they knew more than we do. And I believe that's not true at all.
Basically, we should not expect to have a huge different mentality some point in the future. People do not change much. So do not wait for some spontaneous change in your mind.
Just think about what you really want to do, something that makes you happy, plan for it (don't just randomly do or avoid doing things), and do it.
This is, of course, an important step, probably one of the most important things we'll ever do. There's still some time until birth, but we'll need to prepare, be ready for it, and it will change our daily lives.
Thinking about it, we're "young" for it, at least among the people we know. We're not the only ones who have children at this age, but most people I know that have studied something in University have kids and stable couples later. That does not happen in every culture, of course.
In Russia it seems most people are married and with kids way before reaching 30. In Spain it's otherwise, with people delaying these things until they become 30. I think in Lithuania it's something in the middle of this positions, while England is closer to the Spanish situation, but slightly younger.
Of course, an important factor is the security one feels in that culture or country. Spain right now has a terrible economy, and it's hard to afford some of the things that come with stable couples and kids. However, I think that in Spain it's also very important the cultural factor.
For example, for lots of people of my generation, we passed from the need to get married to the philosophy of not getting married, and seeing marriage as a terrible thing.
I hate stupid traditions. I believe that to do things just because "it has always been done like that" it's a really bad idea. For example, the idea that when you get married you need to do a wedding where you are the centre of attention and where you spend a huge amount of money to make it as impressive as you can. I'm not saying you cannot do it, or that it's very stupid to do it. I'm saying that you should think about it, to see if it's really what you want to do, and analyse the pros and cons it has in your personal opinion. To do it because it's proper, it's what everybody does, without thinking, is stupid.
And not to do it because everybody does it is equally stupid.
Anyway, right now I believe there's people that are not getting married or having kids because they don't feel ready. They also look around and see the same thing happening to other friends, so they believe this is normal, and by that it becomes normal.
I believe lots of people are not doing these things because of a mixture of rebelling against the past traditions, the current lack of economic security, and that feeling of not being ready.
My current generation (people with similar age, similar level of studies, similar economy, etc.) has been the result of a number of coincidences that has made our lives quite easier than for other generations. We have lived in economic prosperity, with nice houses, with all this new "toys" at our reach, and I believe that we've all been...well, spoiled. Not in a bad way, but still, our lives have been relatively easy (even if some people have had it harder than others).
I believe that this kind of environment makes it easier to not have big responsibilities, or even if you have had them, to not easily think of yourself as an "adult". Well, I know I have trouble with this thought at least. It's not a matter of being immature or anything, it's just that, mentally, we all believe to be somehow in our last teenage years, or beginning of our twenties (and maybe that can be applied to everybody).
It's kind of the same reason why some hobbies are considered "childish". We put labels and categorize things, and we expect that things that we like as a child will latter seem silly, when the truth is that if we really like something, there's no reason to stop doing it, since we're the same person than before. Our tastes may change from time to time, but there are no childish hobbies, we just need to learn when can we indulge in them or not.
So, in this change from young to adult, since we're in the last teenage years, we're still having fun. We're not ready for some of those big steps that would clearly be something only an adult does.
What I mean is that sometimes we're somehow waiting for a change in our mind, that will switch into "adult" mode after that. And this is the problem. This does not happen. We're the same person at 15 that at 51. Sure, we'll have more experience at 51, and we may be wiser because of this experience (or not), but we're basically the same person. It's very well said in the movie American Beauty. The main character says that he could tell to his teenage daughter that the insecurities and problems and doubts she's having will pass away after adolescence, but he does not want to lie to her.
Therefore, while we're waiting to be adults, we try to avoid marriage, or having kids, or buying a house, or any other thing that we believe only an adult, centered, stable person will do correctly. Because we do not feel specially centered or stable sometimes, and we've been told hundreds of times this is just a phase that teenagers pass after some time.
Is this a defense of traditional things? Of course not. As I mentioned, I hate to do things just because. I'm just saying that delaying things because we're not considering ourselves "adults" is something that we should try to fight back. We won't get a sudden revelation telling us this is the right moment. We won't know with stone-written certainty that we're ready. We will not avoid contradictory thoughts about these things.
And we should get used to that and get on with our lives. I'm pretty sure everybody has had the same thoughts, maybe just in different ages. The other people we know that are considered adults by us did these things in a way that seemed they had a different mind than our own, that they knew more than we do. And I believe that's not true at all.
Basically, we should not expect to have a huge different mentality some point in the future. People do not change much. So do not wait for some spontaneous change in your mind.
Just think about what you really want to do, something that makes you happy, plan for it (don't just randomly do or avoid doing things), and do it.
Thursday, 24 January 2013
New Year Vacations
I have not written in a while...
The explanation to that can be found in the new year´s vacations. We went back to Barcelona for 12 days to celebrate New Year, and it was a great time. We managed to see friends and family, even if we missed people that we didn´t have time to meet in the end, and we had friends from Vilnius around most of the days.
All these things meant that for 12 days we were rather busy. We scheduled our days to the last minute, and we spend most of the time visiting people, meeting people or walking around the city. We did that for 12 days. And we loved seeing all the people that mattered to us.
However, Olia and I are not the most sociable people. So even if we enjoyed it, afterwards we were destroyed. As in completely tired and wanting to do nothing and not leave the house for several days. It hit me specially hard, and I didn´t want to do anything apart from reading, watching series and movies, or playing games.(things that do not require very high mental processes).
We have to say that we were "lucky", and we got a couple of extra days of isolation to rest and recover. When we were going back, our flight with Turkish airlines (a very good company, with big seats, a tv in front of you, and food during the flight) was going to pass through Istanbul, were we had to wait a couple of hours. It seems that during these dates, there was quite a big snow storm in there. We didn´t know, and in Barcelona´s airport they told us that, and that our plane had not left Istanbul yet. There was a 2 hour delay.
Of course, our first thought was that we were screwed, since the other flight was 2 hours after the first landing. However, they told us that the chaos was general, and that the other flight would be also delayed. With this reassurance, we went inside the airport and waited in front of the Gate. The plane arrived as expected, and we were ready to board....but we didn´t. Time passed and passed. Eventually, we boarded the plane, and had to wait a looong time before taking off. When we landed in Istanbul, we spent looots of time in the airport tracks, waiting for a place to stop the plane and get out.
Adding it all up, we were 4 hours late at least, and it was 1:45 am. Our plane to Sochi, even if delayed as well, had already left some minutes before that, and we were, in fact, screwed. Considering that, we went to claim new tickets, since the airline should help us in these situations.
After a big queue with all the people of all the flights that got delayed because of the snow, we were told that next possible flight was in 2 days, but that the airline was giving us a room in a hotel and had paid for our food and transfer. With no other option, we went to enter the country.
To our surprise, Olia passed without incidents but I was told that I required a Visa, for being Spanish We tried to go back, but they didn´t want to let Olia, since she was officially inside Turkey now, so they kept her passport. We went to an office 20 meters away, and were told that Visas were all for 90 days. We asked for the price, and it was just 15 euros. We paid, they stamped a little thing in my passport, which took 5 seconds, and the police control was happy to let us pass. It was quite embarrassing, not a real Visa, just an entrance fee.
Next thing was to recover our luggage. We went to the office of lost luggage, and we were told that it could wait in the airport for 2 days. We needed it back for our stay in the hotel, so we asked them to bring it to us. They said it would take very long, like 2 hours, but we had no choice. It was rather stupid too, since they should have an easy way to keep track of baggage in transit, and in other circumstances they are able to transfer the baggage from plane to plane in less than 20 minutes...but well, airports are terrible disorganized messes everywhere it seems....
After 2 hours waiting, we were able to reach the desk of the airline in the airport that would transfer us to the hotel. They told us, again, that we would have to wait an hours or so until the shuttle arrived. So we waited some more, taking the chance to have some kind of breakfast (after all these queues and waiting it was after 8 am already). We finally got the shuttle and the transfer to the hotel, we checked in (10 am), and we just went to sleep. We woke up to eat (it was paid by the airline), and continue sleeping, for the whole day and part of the next. We also read, and stayed in bed for a long time. It was quite awesome, actually.
On the second day, after lunch, we decided to actually go and visit something, and we found out that the hotel was right in the centre of the city. We were able to see the blue mosque, and to pick a cache in the process. It was quite nice, even if rather cold. We spent an hour or so walking around, and then went back to the hotel to rest some more and get ready to go to the airport.
We managed to give our suitcases, after having to transfer some weight from one to the other, since we were forced to put duty-free things inside and the total weight had increased. We went to the plane, and this time everything went fine, although the plane took a little longer than planned to take off.
We arrived to Adler, and spent lots of time trying to pass the border and get our suitcases. We didn´t have any problems, but it just took extremely long. Eventually we arrived home, dead, and we went to sleep at 6 am. I had to wake up 2 hours later and go to work, so I did. I had missed 2 extra days of work, but at least it meant that it was Friday. I survived the day, and with that weekend and several days of rest we got used again to live here in Russia.
Now that I have recovered, I´ll write sooner I hope. There´s lots of things that have happened in the world that I´d like to rant about, and I have lots of new computer games that I´d like to comment.
We´ll see....
The explanation to that can be found in the new year´s vacations. We went back to Barcelona for 12 days to celebrate New Year, and it was a great time. We managed to see friends and family, even if we missed people that we didn´t have time to meet in the end, and we had friends from Vilnius around most of the days.
All these things meant that for 12 days we were rather busy. We scheduled our days to the last minute, and we spend most of the time visiting people, meeting people or walking around the city. We did that for 12 days. And we loved seeing all the people that mattered to us.
However, Olia and I are not the most sociable people. So even if we enjoyed it, afterwards we were destroyed. As in completely tired and wanting to do nothing and not leave the house for several days. It hit me specially hard, and I didn´t want to do anything apart from reading, watching series and movies, or playing games.(things that do not require very high mental processes).
We have to say that we were "lucky", and we got a couple of extra days of isolation to rest and recover. When we were going back, our flight with Turkish airlines (a very good company, with big seats, a tv in front of you, and food during the flight) was going to pass through Istanbul, were we had to wait a couple of hours. It seems that during these dates, there was quite a big snow storm in there. We didn´t know, and in Barcelona´s airport they told us that, and that our plane had not left Istanbul yet. There was a 2 hour delay.
Of course, our first thought was that we were screwed, since the other flight was 2 hours after the first landing. However, they told us that the chaos was general, and that the other flight would be also delayed. With this reassurance, we went inside the airport and waited in front of the Gate. The plane arrived as expected, and we were ready to board....but we didn´t. Time passed and passed. Eventually, we boarded the plane, and had to wait a looong time before taking off. When we landed in Istanbul, we spent looots of time in the airport tracks, waiting for a place to stop the plane and get out.
Adding it all up, we were 4 hours late at least, and it was 1:45 am. Our plane to Sochi, even if delayed as well, had already left some minutes before that, and we were, in fact, screwed. Considering that, we went to claim new tickets, since the airline should help us in these situations.
After a big queue with all the people of all the flights that got delayed because of the snow, we were told that next possible flight was in 2 days, but that the airline was giving us a room in a hotel and had paid for our food and transfer. With no other option, we went to enter the country.
To our surprise, Olia passed without incidents but I was told that I required a Visa, for being Spanish We tried to go back, but they didn´t want to let Olia, since she was officially inside Turkey now, so they kept her passport. We went to an office 20 meters away, and were told that Visas were all for 90 days. We asked for the price, and it was just 15 euros. We paid, they stamped a little thing in my passport, which took 5 seconds, and the police control was happy to let us pass. It was quite embarrassing, not a real Visa, just an entrance fee.
Next thing was to recover our luggage. We went to the office of lost luggage, and we were told that it could wait in the airport for 2 days. We needed it back for our stay in the hotel, so we asked them to bring it to us. They said it would take very long, like 2 hours, but we had no choice. It was rather stupid too, since they should have an easy way to keep track of baggage in transit, and in other circumstances they are able to transfer the baggage from plane to plane in less than 20 minutes...but well, airports are terrible disorganized messes everywhere it seems....
After 2 hours waiting, we were able to reach the desk of the airline in the airport that would transfer us to the hotel. They told us, again, that we would have to wait an hours or so until the shuttle arrived. So we waited some more, taking the chance to have some kind of breakfast (after all these queues and waiting it was after 8 am already). We finally got the shuttle and the transfer to the hotel, we checked in (10 am), and we just went to sleep. We woke up to eat (it was paid by the airline), and continue sleeping, for the whole day and part of the next. We also read, and stayed in bed for a long time. It was quite awesome, actually.
On the second day, after lunch, we decided to actually go and visit something, and we found out that the hotel was right in the centre of the city. We were able to see the blue mosque, and to pick a cache in the process. It was quite nice, even if rather cold. We spent an hour or so walking around, and then went back to the hotel to rest some more and get ready to go to the airport.
We managed to give our suitcases, after having to transfer some weight from one to the other, since we were forced to put duty-free things inside and the total weight had increased. We went to the plane, and this time everything went fine, although the plane took a little longer than planned to take off.
We arrived to Adler, and spent lots of time trying to pass the border and get our suitcases. We didn´t have any problems, but it just took extremely long. Eventually we arrived home, dead, and we went to sleep at 6 am. I had to wake up 2 hours later and go to work, so I did. I had missed 2 extra days of work, but at least it meant that it was Friday. I survived the day, and with that weekend and several days of rest we got used again to live here in Russia.
Now that I have recovered, I´ll write sooner I hope. There´s lots of things that have happened in the world that I´d like to rant about, and I have lots of new computer games that I´d like to comment.
We´ll see....
Saturday, 3 November 2012
First week in Adler
After some time of instability, we're finally living in Russia. Right now we're still in the hotel, but this Monday we're supposed to sign the contract for our apartment.
The first impressions have been good, but Russia is indeed a curious country. The place where we will live, Adler, is quite small. It has 3-4 big streets, and the rest of the town is made of little passages and houses. There are a lot of little shops, and we have two shopping malls, that can be reached by a 10-minute walk.
Traffic is awful, there's way too many people using cars to move around, and they drive aggresively, plenty of times ignoring preferences, lights or lanes, and always competing for spaces with other cars. The result is that you can see daily deadlocks in the main street, created by cars trying to turn while other cars are in the way, with no one giving away any ground, and other similar situations.
Luckily, as mentioned, we do not need to use the car in here, we walk everywhere and it takes only a few minutes.
If we feel like going to a bigger place, Sochi's centre is 40 minutes or so (if there are no big traffic jams/deadlocks) away from here using the public buses. We've been there only once, but it's true that feels more like a city. However, if we analyse it, it's a similar situation than in London, where the centre was 40 minutes away, and around our house there was almost nothing, just some shops.
The apartments we can rent are pretty awesome and big, and the one we want to have will give us enough space for guests and parties (so we hope to have people around from time to time). We're meeting new nice people who already live here, and the feeling is similar to London, or to Sweden, where you usually keep meeting people in a similar situation, and since we do not know much of the place we band together. We've already gone to a couple of parties where we've met co-workers, Russians or from other parts of the world.
The hotel we're using right now is quite nice, but it has a major drawback: no internet in the room. This means that we need to go downstairs every time we want to connect, which means that we cannot check things as much as we usually want, or watch series and such things. Anyway, soon enough we'll be able to get internet in our apartment, and we're told it works well enough.
The weather, at the beginning of November, has been quite amazing, sunny and nice, while being temperate and not very hot. At night it's colder, since weather is drier than in Barcelona, but it's still very nice for the month. Before arriving here we had to stop one day in Moscow, and we were at around 3 degrees, it was raining like hell, and when it stopped raining it was to start snowing...
All in all, we believe we can live well in here, we'll see how it goes^^
The first impressions have been good, but Russia is indeed a curious country. The place where we will live, Adler, is quite small. It has 3-4 big streets, and the rest of the town is made of little passages and houses. There are a lot of little shops, and we have two shopping malls, that can be reached by a 10-minute walk.
Traffic is awful, there's way too many people using cars to move around, and they drive aggresively, plenty of times ignoring preferences, lights or lanes, and always competing for spaces with other cars. The result is that you can see daily deadlocks in the main street, created by cars trying to turn while other cars are in the way, with no one giving away any ground, and other similar situations.
Luckily, as mentioned, we do not need to use the car in here, we walk everywhere and it takes only a few minutes.
If we feel like going to a bigger place, Sochi's centre is 40 minutes or so (if there are no big traffic jams/deadlocks) away from here using the public buses. We've been there only once, but it's true that feels more like a city. However, if we analyse it, it's a similar situation than in London, where the centre was 40 minutes away, and around our house there was almost nothing, just some shops.
The apartments we can rent are pretty awesome and big, and the one we want to have will give us enough space for guests and parties (so we hope to have people around from time to time). We're meeting new nice people who already live here, and the feeling is similar to London, or to Sweden, where you usually keep meeting people in a similar situation, and since we do not know much of the place we band together. We've already gone to a couple of parties where we've met co-workers, Russians or from other parts of the world.
The hotel we're using right now is quite nice, but it has a major drawback: no internet in the room. This means that we need to go downstairs every time we want to connect, which means that we cannot check things as much as we usually want, or watch series and such things. Anyway, soon enough we'll be able to get internet in our apartment, and we're told it works well enough.
The weather, at the beginning of November, has been quite amazing, sunny and nice, while being temperate and not very hot. At night it's colder, since weather is drier than in Barcelona, but it's still very nice for the month. Before arriving here we had to stop one day in Moscow, and we were at around 3 degrees, it was raining like hell, and when it stopped raining it was to start snowing...
All in all, we believe we can live well in here, we'll see how it goes^^
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Moving Out
We're finally back in Barcelona, and the last days in London have been quite busy. Moving is always a little bit stressful, and it requires you to do looots of things...
The last week we tried to meet with everybody who's living there, all the time, which required a lot of organising and planning. We more or less managed to see them, but in the end there were some rushed up good-byes and short meetings.
While doing that, we tried to start packing to move out of the apartment. That was quite horrible...
Moving is hard, but moving by using the plane is extra hard, because of the limitations in weight and volume that you have. Even when we already knew we were leaving furniture behind there were lots of things to pack. So, after several failed tries, we managed to send 3 initial packages and start filling the first suitcase. The initial plan was to use 3 suitcases, and that's what we had booked.
After seeing that we were not making much progress, we decided to leave it for the final two days. that's always a nice extra motivation to finish, the fact that there is no more time left. We already had 3 suitcases, but one of them was broken in several spots and we didn't trust it would reach Barcelona with full integrity. Therefore we bought a new cheap one from Tesco, just to survive for this trip, and the night we had to pack everything we threw away the broken one. We checked in to the flight with 3 suitcases, and we were ready to start packing.
We originally came with 3 suitcases, and we also sent 2 packages. We bought some things, but we did get rid of lots of winter clothes in trips to Vilnius and Barcelona, and we sent 3 packages with things we bought while in London. We thought it was going to be the same as our arrival.
Problems started when we finished the first 2 suitcases. We still had way too many things to pack. Clearly it was not going to be enough with one more suitcase. So we got a box from the garage that we still had from a received package and decided we were going to sent another one.
We filled the box, and still there were too many things. Remembering the thrown suitcase, we ran towards the trash, and luckily it was still there. Sure, it was broken, but if we wrapped it in plastic it would probably survive. With 4 suitcases we managed to fit most things, with some left for the hand luggage, but the 4 suitcases weighted close to 24 each. British Airways is generous, but the maximum weight per suitcase is 23, and we didn't want to risk it, so we started a nightmarish process of removing a little thing, weighting the suitcases, putting it somewhere else, and weighting them again.
We finally decided to load all extra kilos in the most resilient one, which reached 28 Kg, and we would pay the 40 pounds charge for one overweight suitcase. At this point it seemed a cheap solution...Only thing left was to add a suitcase to our plane ticket.
So, we proceeded to the flight booking information, and tried to add a suitcase. First, we had some trouble finding a place in the web where the suitcase could be added, but well, we managed to access it after making some google searches. We had the page, and there was a combo box where you mark how many suitcases to add to you booking. The combo box was in the 0 position, so I went and tried to change it....unsuccessfully.
After checking it with several browsers with same results, we read that once you had done the on-line check-in, you could not add more suitcases. That was stupid and made no sense to us...well, except for the fact that if you add them at the airport it was twice the price. This way if you make a mistake they can get more money out of you.
This made us angry, for obvious reasons. It was a cheap trick to get money. Therefore, before surrendering and waiting to be in the airport to add baggage, I went back to the webpage for one last experiment. With Chrome I decided to have a look at the combo box. Indeed, the html code marked it as disabled, and having only the "0 suitcases to add" option. Well, we didn't want that. So I edited it, changed it to "enable", and added a new value in the combo box, a simple "1". With the combo box active, I selected the "1" value, expecting the page to fail in some way.
The javascript function that got activated by changing the combo worked fine, and informed us that we were going to add a suitcase to our booking. Therefore, we sent the "edited" form. This is the step when your information is processed by the server, so it doesn't matter what you did before, the server rechecks everything. All the editing that I did was just for fun, to see how the form would fail when resent. The only thing, it didn't.
Everything was perfectly fine and in order according to the website. We just needed to pay the online fee, and we'd have a nice new suitcase in our booking. We paid, while being rather surprised....but yes, checking the booking from another computer showed 2 suitcases instead of 1. What we did is illegal, we're pretty sure...but we shouldn't be able to do it, and that's illegal as well, not to protect yourself from these things. We paid everything anyway, we just avoided a trick to get money out of customers...
Just in case, we saved the bill of the new suitcase, finished packing somehow, and next day we went to the airport, with the help of Dani Fernandez. We had printed the boarding passes and the bill, and we went to baggage drop. We had one overweight suitcase, but we knew that and it was fine. The clerk there checked our information, and then told us that we only had 3 suitcases.
We kind of expected that, so with the most innocent face we could make, explained that we had bought the extra suitcase, and presented the bill as proof. We said we did that before check-in, and the clerk decided to make a call, I guess to check our booking somewhere else. When he asked about suitcases they told him that it was 4, and the clerk proceeded to say everything's fine and let us drop everything.
So, there was no technical problem in letting us add a suitcase after check-in. They could have added this option and just resend the check-in information if some part of the booking was changed, but they didn't let us, in order to get some extra money the moment we made any mistake...
Anyway, after all this troubles we managed to safely get back to Barcelona. We've been some time there now, and we're getting ready for Sochi, but we won't move there yet. We'll explain more about all these new preparations some other time, in another post :)
The last week we tried to meet with everybody who's living there, all the time, which required a lot of organising and planning. We more or less managed to see them, but in the end there were some rushed up good-byes and short meetings.
While doing that, we tried to start packing to move out of the apartment. That was quite horrible...
Moving is hard, but moving by using the plane is extra hard, because of the limitations in weight and volume that you have. Even when we already knew we were leaving furniture behind there were lots of things to pack. So, after several failed tries, we managed to send 3 initial packages and start filling the first suitcase. The initial plan was to use 3 suitcases, and that's what we had booked.
After seeing that we were not making much progress, we decided to leave it for the final two days. that's always a nice extra motivation to finish, the fact that there is no more time left. We already had 3 suitcases, but one of them was broken in several spots and we didn't trust it would reach Barcelona with full integrity. Therefore we bought a new cheap one from Tesco, just to survive for this trip, and the night we had to pack everything we threw away the broken one. We checked in to the flight with 3 suitcases, and we were ready to start packing.
We originally came with 3 suitcases, and we also sent 2 packages. We bought some things, but we did get rid of lots of winter clothes in trips to Vilnius and Barcelona, and we sent 3 packages with things we bought while in London. We thought it was going to be the same as our arrival.
Problems started when we finished the first 2 suitcases. We still had way too many things to pack. Clearly it was not going to be enough with one more suitcase. So we got a box from the garage that we still had from a received package and decided we were going to sent another one.
We filled the box, and still there were too many things. Remembering the thrown suitcase, we ran towards the trash, and luckily it was still there. Sure, it was broken, but if we wrapped it in plastic it would probably survive. With 4 suitcases we managed to fit most things, with some left for the hand luggage, but the 4 suitcases weighted close to 24 each. British Airways is generous, but the maximum weight per suitcase is 23, and we didn't want to risk it, so we started a nightmarish process of removing a little thing, weighting the suitcases, putting it somewhere else, and weighting them again.
We finally decided to load all extra kilos in the most resilient one, which reached 28 Kg, and we would pay the 40 pounds charge for one overweight suitcase. At this point it seemed a cheap solution...Only thing left was to add a suitcase to our plane ticket.
So, we proceeded to the flight booking information, and tried to add a suitcase. First, we had some trouble finding a place in the web where the suitcase could be added, but well, we managed to access it after making some google searches. We had the page, and there was a combo box where you mark how many suitcases to add to you booking. The combo box was in the 0 position, so I went and tried to change it....unsuccessfully.
After checking it with several browsers with same results, we read that once you had done the on-line check-in, you could not add more suitcases. That was stupid and made no sense to us...well, except for the fact that if you add them at the airport it was twice the price. This way if you make a mistake they can get more money out of you.
This made us angry, for obvious reasons. It was a cheap trick to get money. Therefore, before surrendering and waiting to be in the airport to add baggage, I went back to the webpage for one last experiment. With Chrome I decided to have a look at the combo box. Indeed, the html code marked it as disabled, and having only the "0 suitcases to add" option. Well, we didn't want that. So I edited it, changed it to "enable", and added a new value in the combo box, a simple "1". With the combo box active, I selected the "1" value, expecting the page to fail in some way.
The javascript function that got activated by changing the combo worked fine, and informed us that we were going to add a suitcase to our booking. Therefore, we sent the "edited" form. This is the step when your information is processed by the server, so it doesn't matter what you did before, the server rechecks everything. All the editing that I did was just for fun, to see how the form would fail when resent. The only thing, it didn't.
Everything was perfectly fine and in order according to the website. We just needed to pay the online fee, and we'd have a nice new suitcase in our booking. We paid, while being rather surprised....but yes, checking the booking from another computer showed 2 suitcases instead of 1. What we did is illegal, we're pretty sure...but we shouldn't be able to do it, and that's illegal as well, not to protect yourself from these things. We paid everything anyway, we just avoided a trick to get money out of customers...
Just in case, we saved the bill of the new suitcase, finished packing somehow, and next day we went to the airport, with the help of Dani Fernandez. We had printed the boarding passes and the bill, and we went to baggage drop. We had one overweight suitcase, but we knew that and it was fine. The clerk there checked our information, and then told us that we only had 3 suitcases.
We kind of expected that, so with the most innocent face we could make, explained that we had bought the extra suitcase, and presented the bill as proof. We said we did that before check-in, and the clerk decided to make a call, I guess to check our booking somewhere else. When he asked about suitcases they told him that it was 4, and the clerk proceeded to say everything's fine and let us drop everything.
So, there was no technical problem in letting us add a suitcase after check-in. They could have added this option and just resend the check-in information if some part of the booking was changed, but they didn't let us, in order to get some extra money the moment we made any mistake...
Anyway, after all this troubles we managed to safely get back to Barcelona. We've been some time there now, and we're getting ready for Sochi, but we won't move there yet. We'll explain more about all these new preparations some other time, in another post :)
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Until next time!
A great part of living some time abroad is meeting lots of nice people that become close to you. The bad part is that plenty of times you have to leave them, or they have to leave. That's life, but it's still a sad moment.
9 years ago I participated in a two-weeks student exchange with Sweden, where I met lots of nice people that stayed in Sweden afterwards. Shortly after that I did the way of St. James, a walking route were you make bonds with the people that walk with you day after day, resisting this little nomad life.
4 years ago I went to finish my university studies in Sweden, and the international environment made me interact with people all around the world. There I even met my future wife, and we actually started dating after being apart first...
2 years and a half ago I went to Vancouver to work for a short time, and I met curious people who worked around the world. And just one year ago I joined that people and moved to London to work with some of them.
All the previous times, I had to say goodbye without guarantees of seeing the person again, and in some cases there was a lot of drama involved, because it really felt that the time spent together was great and unrepeatable. However, there is something that I always thought, and that is true: The world is actually very small.
It takes us less than a day to move anywhere in the planet. That is just awesome, and not many people realise about it. Sure, it's not cheap, and it's not something you can do every day...but the point is you can. We're lucky, we can take a plane and in 2-3 hours cross countries and meet again with friends. And the internet just makes everything easier, allowing us to talk with far-away people as if they were next to us.
One of the people I met 9 years ago is still one of our best friends. My wife and I met lots of friends in the end of my studies in Sweden, and we see them regularly, even if sometimes months or years pass between meetings. When we meet, it's like it was yesterday that we last saw them. Living for so long abroad means as well that the friends from our home cities are harder to see, but again it doesn't matter how long, we always meet again and have fun together.
Soon enough we will leave London, and we will move again, to Sochi in Russia. We will meet new people, and we will make new friends. But first we will have to say goodbye here. We have already started to do so.
And we do that with an "Until next time!". Because we will see you again. The world is very small after all^^
9 years ago I participated in a two-weeks student exchange with Sweden, where I met lots of nice people that stayed in Sweden afterwards. Shortly after that I did the way of St. James, a walking route were you make bonds with the people that walk with you day after day, resisting this little nomad life.
4 years ago I went to finish my university studies in Sweden, and the international environment made me interact with people all around the world. There I even met my future wife, and we actually started dating after being apart first...
2 years and a half ago I went to Vancouver to work for a short time, and I met curious people who worked around the world. And just one year ago I joined that people and moved to London to work with some of them.
All the previous times, I had to say goodbye without guarantees of seeing the person again, and in some cases there was a lot of drama involved, because it really felt that the time spent together was great and unrepeatable. However, there is something that I always thought, and that is true: The world is actually very small.
It takes us less than a day to move anywhere in the planet. That is just awesome, and not many people realise about it. Sure, it's not cheap, and it's not something you can do every day...but the point is you can. We're lucky, we can take a plane and in 2-3 hours cross countries and meet again with friends. And the internet just makes everything easier, allowing us to talk with far-away people as if they were next to us.
One of the people I met 9 years ago is still one of our best friends. My wife and I met lots of friends in the end of my studies in Sweden, and we see them regularly, even if sometimes months or years pass between meetings. When we meet, it's like it was yesterday that we last saw them. Living for so long abroad means as well that the friends from our home cities are harder to see, but again it doesn't matter how long, we always meet again and have fun together.
Soon enough we will leave London, and we will move again, to Sochi in Russia. We will meet new people, and we will make new friends. But first we will have to say goodbye here. We have already started to do so.
And we do that with an "Until next time!". Because we will see you again. The world is very small after all^^
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