Kazan — summer 2010

It has begun! The first leg of my return to Russia after being gone way too many years. To my surprise I was met at the Phoenix airport by Daniel, a participant in our program who has made us quite proud at ASU by winning a Boren scholarship. I'm particularly proud of him; he has done his first- and second-year Russian classes with me. I wish I could claim credit, but the truth is that he is very bright and hardworking. Daniel could learn Ancient Greek from a hole in the ground.

Daniel's flight path to Kazan only partially intersects mine. He flies from Washington-Moscow-Kazan. The Moscow-Kazan portion is on S7 Airline, which has a baggage limitation of 15 lbs. Being a clever guy, Daniel managed to pack his entire 8 weeks of luggage into two carry-on bags. Eight... weeks... of luggage... Good heavens. I'll be in Russia eleven weeks and I had to pay an extra $200 for my overweight bag. Do you think I'm going to go to Russia without my pomegranate and pumice shower gel? Surely you jest.

Washington/Dulles is full of Russian language. Passed by a group of teenage girls wearing "Future Leaders Exchange" t-shirts. They were all speaking Russian. They had a Tatar or Kalmyk look to them. You would never have had a giggly group of Russian-speaking teenaged girls in the US during the Soviet period. I eavesdropped on phone conversations and was astonished how much the Russian language has changed, especially with words imported from English. And when I had trouble connecting with wi-fi, I approached some Russian guys for advice, and with disgust they said: «Здесь нет бесплатного интернета» "There is no free internet here."

Damned if they weren't right. These hairbags at Dulles don't offer free wi-fi, unlike the user-friendly Phoenix airport. What's worse, the sign-on for most of the standard services they have don't seem to automatically redirect your URL to where you can give them a credit-card number. I ended up asking a stranger how he had gained access: Boingo. So I tried Boingo, and it seems to be working fine.

Dulles is 90 degrees and human. Rather worse than Phoenix, which I usually think of as the "ancestral hellhole."

Next stop: Frankfurt am Main.

PS. No, there is no such thing as pomegranate and pumice shower gel... at least as far as I know.