Lex Libertas

My Birthday, and the 11 Hour Walk

Today was my birthday, and to celebrate it I did ... nothing. Well that's not true. I did treat myself to KFC for lunch. It was ok, the ketchup here is really sweet. I got a chicken sandwich called the farmer, it comes with weird tasting pickles, but the meat itself is quite good.

Over here there are many forms of transport - the subway, buses, mini-buses (like family vans with the inside filled with benches), taxis, and personal vehicles. To get a personal vehicle, you just stand on the side of the road and stick out your hand. Some random person will stop, and you tell them where you want to go. You'll haggle a price and off you go. Neat concept - although I haven't yet tried it myself, and I don't know if I will ever be comfortable with it.

Anyways, I finally figured out some of the routes for the mini-buses. It's as if Russia has all the negatives of central planning with none of the benefits. You'd think that there would be, somewhere a map of all the bus routes, but there isn't. It's not even really posted at stops. The buses themselves carry an abridged version in their windows. Today I took a mini-bus home because the subway was jam packed, there was even a line outside the entrance. And by line I mean a massive group of people all violently pushing to get in the doors. It's like a colony of penguins huddled together - only with even less room than the picture. In taking this mini-bus, I learned my first LOTD (hopefully I can get one every post).

Lesson Of The Day: When in the mini-bus, do not take the seat directly behind the driver. He will doubtlessly have an ever burning cigarette, and the wind will push it back directly into your face for the entire trip. Sucks for a Californian, used to stringent (and just) anti-smoking laws.

11 Hour Walk

As you remember from last post, I had some things to take care of for my visa registration. As if getting the visa wasn't enough, it turns out to only be an entry visa. If I want to leave the country, I need to apply for an exit visa as well. Great. In addition, I have to get my visa registered within four or five days of my arrival in Russia. The process, once I submit the required documents, takes approximately 3 weeks, during which they keep my passport. To get it registered I need

-Four photos
-Full Tuition payment
-Processing fees
-HIV test

Yesterday I decided to get all this done. I started the day at 9:00 am sharp, intending to get it all done by class time at 2:30. Fat chance. I spent 11 hours solid walking around the city trying to get these things done, and I only ended up crossing off 1.5 items. As a result of my 9-8 marathon, I know have blisters on my feet which make it very uncomfortable to walk.

I was able to get the photos, after finally finding a place that takes the id pictures. I have a limit on the amount of cash I can withdraw from the atm per day, and that made it impossible to pull out the 18,000 rubles ($600) necessary for the tuition. I have to spread it out over several days. I took the HIV test, but had to wait until today to get the results. So, though I tried to get it all done yesterday, I didn't finish gathering the necessary steps until today, at 5:00. Mind, the office is supposed to be open until 6:00, but when I got there at 5:30, the person I needed wasn't in. So tomorrow will be one more day of carrying around 18,000 rubles on my person. Some mugger will get really lucky if he decides to pick me.

Hopefully tomorrow, I can get this stupid visa registration taken care so I can stop spending my days running around town trying to get administrative affairs taken care of, in a language I don't speak. I'll finally be able to focus on what I came here for, learning Russian. The people at the office are nice enough about helping you get over here, but once you are they tell you what you have to do and then expect you to take care of it yourself.