November 21st

Myself, Bredan Fox, Stuart Coffee, and Taylor Castelli on the bank of the Angara River at dusk

Kazanskii Cathedral, Irkutsk

Winter sunset over the Angara River, Irkutsk

Well, I’m on an airplane somewhere over Russia right now. It’s 5:05 PM, which isn’t really all that important except that we were supposed to land at 3:15 PM. We were an hour late leaving Irkutsk, which was nerve racking because the departure time came and went with no one making any announcement or even saying what gate we needed to go to. Everyone was just quiet and accepted this as status quo in stark contrast to an American airport. We would have asked someone who worked there, but there was literally no one there. Russia… Well, we finally left and then landed and taxied to a gate. Everyone got up, got their luggage and coats and then the pilot decided that he ought to tell us that we weren’t actually in Moscow. Details, details! Then, without further explanation we sat for an hour, refueled, got de-iced then took off again. No one seems to care, and the good Lord knows I don’t have anywhere I need to be, so no worries there… Always an experience! Who knows, if I’m really lucky, my checked bag might make it too! I’m not going to be greedy though… Apropos nothing, I’m really looking forward to that bus ride back home (attention reader: sarcasm) (also, this is kind of ridiculous that I’m writing this now and I’m going to post it after my arrival in V-town, but bear with me). So, the trip: official word is: Wow. Seems kind of understated, I know, but imagine that that ‘wow’ was uttered with a kind of awe and appreciation, maybe real quiet like with a lot of emphasis on that last ‘w’ there. Got it. I suppose if I really cared enough I could post up a sound clip of that ‘wow’ but I’ve already gone and described it, so what’s the use? Anyways, enough about me rambling, more about the trip… So, basically the way this whole thing went down was this: we bought plane tickets, bought a hostel, read the guidebook, made some plans that looked vaguely like this (and by vaguely I mean this is actually the only plan that we had):

13- Bus overnight Voronezh-Moskva

14- arrive early morn.

15 arrive 0745 meet up at airport, get into hostel, explore IRK

Trans Sib Hostel

16- See the city?

17- Listvyanka (museum/dog sledding?)

18- Circum-baikal rail +camping?

19- Circum-baikal rail?

20-

21- Depart 1400

Bus to vtown

22 arrive in vtown

You may have noticed the liberal sprinkling of question marks, and perhaps even the lack of anything on the 20^th, so I feel like you get the picture. We were essentially banking on our ability to entertain ourselves and have a good time doing anything rather than having any sort of solid plan. Well, it ended up being for the best because within an hour of us arriving, Brendan got bit by a stray dog while running. I feel like that’s the subject of another post, but for now, let’s suffice to say that he needed rabies shots every two days that would have ruined any well laid plans. We essentially went from being really lazy tourists without plans to “flexible.” Handy how a different description changes things. When we first showed up, the girl in charge of the hostel actually asked us if we were staying in a hostel six nights in a row to make a film. Apparently everyone stays for a night then goes out and… “does things.” Like… see Lake Baikal. Whatever that means. Either way, we quickly saw our way around the city (truly beautiful). Quick aside from the pilot: apparently we’re getting into Moscow at 9 PM. Where the heck did we go, Vladivostok?? That’s lame… Where was I? Oh yes, so Irkutsk: good town, better churches, best Mexican food. I’ve got my ducks in a row. I’ll probably throw up a few pictures, because these are by far the best I’ve ever taken (with a liberal assist from Irkutsk) (Christmas list: new camera? I’ve glued mine back together, but I’m pretty sure it’s on its last legs. There are some dents on it that would embarrass a used car salesman. Same one would be great… sorry everyone else who isn’t Mom and couldn’t care less). So, spent three days tooling around the city, which we managed to make interesting by not actually seeing anything until the third day when we finally got a map (again, being able to entertain ourselves was critical when you spend a whole day going to the central market, shopping, and checking the bus schedule {to be fair, it did get dark at 5 PM. When you wake up at 10 AM it doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to be productive}). So, we spent the first three days in such a manner, meanwhile making friends with the hostel owner, Anton, a grade “A” bro who really made our trip what it was. But more on that later. My computer is almost out of battery and I’m now free to contemplate how our six hour flight just turned into a 12 hour ordeal. My oh my. Toodles.