Our flight from Moscow was scheaduled to leave at 3:55 pm and as everyone who has traveled knows it is a long time to wait if you have nothing to do and it is too short a time to do anything. So we went to a breakfast buffet to eat and we got ready to leave. Never wanting to miss a flight you always get ready early and want to get to the airport early. So after we ate we took all our belongings to the lobby to wait for our ride. Anatoly was to pick us up at twelve-thirty, there was an hour ride to the airport and after customs and the like we should only have an hour to wait, not bad.
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| A street in Moscow near Hard Rock |
During the ride I sat in the back and Teri sat up front. The strategy was to sit between the two girls and make it difficult for them to get crazy. I took out the camera and replayed some of the videos I took at the Moscow circus and some of the videos of the girls singing on the car trip to Kharbarsky. It was a good start until Elena wanted to use the camera. So I put it away and only occasionally took it out to take some videos of the city. I did give Elena my other camera and let her take pictures until the battery died (about 6 pictures).
We got to the airport in plenty of time and went through the security and got to the gates with about 35 or so minutes until the boarding started. During the wait to go through security Elena has to go to the bathroom and what do you tell a little girl? We tell her to wait. What else could you do?
After security she got her bathroom break and then they got some lays chip flavored with caviar.
We boarded the plane and our seats were not together. Two seats were in row 31 with a window seat. The other two were isle seats in row 35, seats g and h. Elena and Teri got the two seats together and Nastia and I go the seats on the aisle. The figuring was that Nastia could handle sitting next to a stranger better then Elena. That is exactly what happened. Nastia begins talking with this guy next to her and he is trying to sleep and he is polite and talks to her and every time I tell him I’m sorry for her he says it’s ok.
The plane takes off and everything goes well for the first several hours. Elena is up with Teri and Nastia has conned the guy out of his window seat. When dinner comes through Nastia switches again so I can get the majority of her dinner that she won’t eat. She won’t eat meat because someone told her it comes from dead cows and I end up with 90% of her dinner.
After dinner people start moving around the plane and the guy next to Nastia disappears and the guy next to me disappears. Elena sees this and asks to sit next to Nastia which is a mistake but I let her and I go up to talk to Teri who I have not seen much since Birobidzan. We talk and I look back toward the twisted sisters and it goes well for the first few minutes. I don’t remember what happens but I think the two of them start to get carried away and get noisy. I tell them to be quite and it gets to the point where I send Elena back to Teri and she refuses to go. I have to push her down the aisle of the plane and she grabs seats and refuses to move her feet. I feel as if the eyes of everyone on the plane are on me and judging me. Why is this American got these two Russian girls? He doesn’t know how to raise Russian girls. I have to lift her into her seat and that is the end of the first time. Yes it happens again and it is the same. She tells Teri she has to go to the bathroom and she tries to sit in my seat and I have to grab her and force her down the aisle. I lose my temper at this point and I hiss into her ear that if she ever wants to get out of that seat again she better get in it now. I could have recited the star spangled banner for all the difference it made, she doesn’t understand English.
I guess that was the low point of the flight if you don’t include the viewing for the third time in a month ‘What happens in Vegas’ and ‘Twenty-Seven Dresses’.
We land at about six-thirty at J.F.K. Airport we go through customs, we go through passport control where the officer checking us out had adopted a child from Korea and we exchanged a few stories, the guy was real nice. We are then asked to go to a small room where they were going to take care of some paperwork. It took about fifteen minutes and then we get our bags and find our driver and finally we are on our way home. It is a strange feeling to be away for so long and then to finally be back. Everything is strange, yet familiar. It is now about seven in the evening in New York, in Moscow it is two am and in Birobidzan it is ten in the morning, everyone is tired and doesn’t know how many hours of sleep they are missing. We yell at the girls to keep the noise down and the first person to fall asleep is Teri.
On the plane Nastia fell asleep at the end of the flight and Elena I don’t know if she slept at all.
When we get to t he house there are a bunch of car and all the lights in the house are on. I was not happy. A welcome home party for the girls is a nice idea but the adoption people said it would not be good for the girls. So I approached the house with some reserve. After a few minutes the girls seem to be unaffected by everything I relax. Again the girls go against the norm. The party was the nicest way to end the trip and I was glad almost everyone came over. Thank you all.
