Love and an Introduction to Siberia

Took a little hiatus, and we'll get to all the adventure-packed stories of our visit back home, but first, for the sake of my emotional health and sanity, I must update you fine folks on our current location, Noyabrsk, Russia.

Here's the backstory...
The whole reason Hubs and I are in Russia is because of Noyabrsk. In fact, we were originally supposed to move and live here in this 100,000 person town in the middle of Siberia instead of Moscow, an eleven million person hub. The town was established in the 70's by the oil industry, so it's still fairly young, but unfortunately has peaked in infancy. While the oil field does still run the town and provide the majority of jobs and probably pretty well-paying ones by Siberian standards, most employees work on a rotational basis, thirty days on, thirty days off, so there hasn't been the kind of growth this place needs to open a Starbucks. Or even a McDonalds. Yeah, I know. Whoa.

Hubs, therefore communtes to work from Moscow for a few weeks along with his travels throughout the Russia/Caspian Region on various jobs. And I stay in Moscow. But this week we have to be in Noyabrsk to apply for our multi-entry visa. Maybe one day I'll write an entry about how to get a visa in Russia, but I'm afraid my blood pressure may already by high today and my sanity near gone, so I'll save it for a day in the future, when things have stabilized a bit.

The flight itself wasn't bad. I had to work extra hard to not think about the horrible reputation Russian Airlines have for using poorly maintained planes that routinely crash and kill all their passengers. Maybe someday I can adopt the Russian "positive" attitude ("Another plane crash? Flights will be cheaper now, no?" insert deep Russian accent in there, and you've nailed it.) but for right now, I adopt the American attitude, wishing I had some Valium. In the end, Hubs and I compromised between the two and drank vodka. Viva la Russia.

We made it to the airport just fine. The system for arrivals is borderline hilarious and again proves my theory that they make up jobs for the billions of people in this country that otherwise would have none. We get off the small plane, hop on a bus that they cram as many people on as possible and drive us twenty feet to the gate. Seriously. I could see the gate from the bus, read the words on the signs, everything. I could also see from the plane that it looked like a prison gate, which was unsettling considering that Russian prisons are typically in Siberia. The bus was probably because someone's brother-in-law needed a job and public transportation in town wasn't hiring.

Once we loaded everyone on and drove 15 seconds to the gate, we waited outside the baggage claim building for our luggage to arrive. It was a beautiful day as you can see from the pictures, a little chilly compared to Moscow and downright freezing compared to Texas in August, but comfortable and sunny, a welcome break after our flight. But then you have to think about what it's like waiting outside in January. Isn't someones brother-in-law's cousin work in construction and need a job? Have them build a waiting area for Heaven's sake! Another thing to remember if ever you're flying to Noyabrsk, you cannot lose your baggage claim ticket. A concept completely foreign to yours truly. Even as someone who routinely has luggage lost or late, I always lose my baggage claim ticket and it always works out in the end. But here, you have to give them your ticket and they retrieve your baggage for you. One Russian woman was unfortunate enough to have lost hers and I felt so bad for her as she was digging through the trash and making her husband search high and low on the street and in dirty corners for it. I don't know what she had to do to eventually get her luggage, but she did manage to walk out with it, and as far as I could tell was not missing any toes or fingers for not having that precious ticket.

As for our luggage, my sweet husband is just too plain nice for his own good, letting anyone in front of him who put any energy into shoving their way up the line. He might argue that he was only letting in women with children or the elderly, but I call it collateral damage. Sorry. For ya. At any rate,

We made it to the hotel after a quick stop at the office and I was completely exhausted, still not yet recovered from the jet lag of our trip from Texas back to Moscow. Silly of me to think that getting a hotel would be easy. Our hotel clerk used the same technique Hubs does, which is to just push through the language barrier by continuing to talk in your own language. Usually this makes me laugh, but I was so tired and worried that we were encountering an actual problem with our passports that it wasn't funny until typing it out just now. Apparently, one of the only hotel employees who spoke English was out, so they had to call her and bring her back in so that she could explain to us that we couldn't stay without registration paperwork.

Huh?

A friend of mine had told me about this registration paperwork awhile back, so I was instantly mad at myself for brushing it off with, "Meh, if we needed it, the company would have given it to us..." No big deal. Just call someone from the office to bring it up or talk to the hotel clerk. But then suddenly neither of our phones were working, an issue we have yet to figure out since they work just fine now. By the time I was completely convinced that we would be sleeping in the streets of Siberia, we finally got a call back, and Dan's supervisor smoothed things over, we were handed a room key and off we went before they could change their minds.


Our room was beautiful. Large, with plenty of shampoo and shower gels, eye covers for the late night daylight and a large tv. We fell straight to bed and dozed. Until our room phone rang and we were told that we were given the wrong room number. The room we were actually supposed to be in is about half the size and with paper thin walls. When I say paper thin walls, I'm not talking about your college dorm, people. I'm talking I can hear everything and our neighbor seems to be on Skype for hours at a time. With a small child. Who screams. Screaming child via Skype. That was our soundtrack our first night in Siberia. Eesh. It wasn't bad for me, I was completely exhausted and slept for ten hours straight, waking only periodically when the screams were particularly loud. And let me tell you, there is nothing more terrifying than waking up in a strange country, in a new city and thinking theres a woman and child who have somehow managed to get into your room. The sound was that close. And the hotel must know it's that bad because we had a pair of complimentary ear plugs on the bedside table.

Frankly, we were spoiled by our trip home to renew our visas. And maybe Russia wasn't too fond of her new guests abandoning her so soon into our acquaintance.Writing about it now helps calm the nerves I sometimes get at the possibility of failing at this grand adventure. I don't always have the best attitude when I'm in the moment, and sometimes it comes out in eye rolls, pacing, pestering Hubs, vodka and yes, even elbowing small children. (But usually only when they're cutting in line. Usually.) But, I have to remind myself that we won't fail at this because the "this" is "us". And if at the end of the day, we love each other despite our crabby days and babushka sucker punches, if we can make each other laugh and feel at home half a world away, it doesn't matter if a tear falls or a meal is skipped or if we are sleeping on the streets of Siberia because a hotel won't let us in, we haven't failed each other.

And, to start a new day, the next morning our hotel neighbor played Aerosmith's "Greatest Hits" album. And random Aerosmith background music? Now thats something I can get behind.

Cheers to neighbors near and far, without whom, our stories and our soundtrack might be lacking.