October 3, 2005 - Berlin

So... The flight from Moscow was smooth. I have to admit that I thought that my time would not go as smooth. But it was great. I had a few little "challenges" but I was able to get through them. I think that my most challenging moment was the first day in St. Petersburg. When the woman in the "mini-hotel" told me that my reservation was for the day before I just about froze up and did not know what to do. I was glad to have all my paperwork with me that showed the dates of my reservation. Things got smoothed out and now here I am sitting in Berlin Drinking Dunkin´ Donuts coffee of all things. That´s right . . . Dunkin´ Donuts. I´ve died and gone to heaven. I know where I´ll be tomorrow morning after I wake up. Woooohoooo !!

So I got up early this morning to take one last walk through Red Square. I took MORE pictures and then found a nice coffee shop to have coffee. I ventured in a different direction for awhile and found Revolution square. I doubled back toward Red Sqaure discovered that they were constructing a temporary platform next to St. Basil´s cathedral. It is huge. I asked one of the guards in front of the Kremlin what it was for and he said that it was for an "October Celebration". I had to remember one of the words that he used so that I could look it up in the dictionary. It made sense.

After returning from my morning walk it was already 11:30 a.m so it was time to go to the airport. Even though my flight was not until 3:30 pm I wanted to have plenty of time in case something went wrong. The 30% rule. Anyway.... I took the metro to Paveletsky train station and bought a ticket on the Domodedova Express, 120 Rubles = approximately $ 5.00 u.s. The train ride to the airport was about 1 hour. Check-in at the airport took about 45 minutes because there were so many people. I recieved my boarding pass and headed for the gate area. I was surprised. The airport had been totally remodeled. It was very modern. Everything seemed to flow. As I was walking to the gate there were serveral desks for filling out your customs form. Which later proved to be a waste of time because no one ever even looked at it.

After the Customs form I went up to the Second floor and had to go through immigrations. When I first entered Russia I was given an Immigrations card to fill out. I was instructed by the woman in the Helsinki train station to not lose this card. This card was stamped with my Russian Visa registration for each hotel I stayed at which accounted for all the days that I was in Russia. So the hotel in St. Petersburg stamped my immigration card to register that I had visited St. Petersburg. When I arrived at the hotel in Moscow the hotel did the same thing. They took my passport and registered that I had arrived in Moscow and stamped my immigration card. All this was in addition to having my Russian Visa. A bit over the top....I think. Oh well....

So....After the Immigration guy scrutinized my passport for what seemed like 10 minutes...he asked me why I was going to Germany instead of back to the U.S. and I had to try to explain to him why. That was fun. He smiled and tried to ask me a few more questions for what I thought was just to laugh at my struggling Russian !

After the "fun" passport check, the security check was the most thorough I had ever been through. They require that you removed your shoes and belt. Place them all in a plastic tub and then the standard metal detectors. All pretty standard. They frisk everyone. I got scanned with the hand held metal detector. I had no metal on me and the scanner was going off....so I got frisked....COMPLETELY. Then the woman at the x-ray wanted to know what everything was in my back pack. I had to show her my paddilock (sp?), I also have a small mag light. She then wanted to know what my USB cord does for my camera so I had to show here that it plugged into my camera and then into a computer. I also have a small tri-pod for my camera and she wanted to know what that was. Then she wanted to see my MP3 play. I just think she wanted to see all my toys. That will teach me to bring so much next time....which is not all that much.

So I am in Berlin for two days. I am doing laundry tomorrow....I desparately need to !! After that I will make my arrangements on the train for Prague. I met a young young American woman from Vail, Colorado in this Internet cafe and she said to take the night train to Prague so it will be cheaper accomodation for one night and then I will have all day in the city to find a hotel, etc. I will also make some arrangements for Vienna and Budapest.

I will try to post some pictures when I find a cafe that will let me plug my camera into their computers. Hope all are well

I love you Mom..... Dad !!