Dragqueens, какао, and Kazakhstan

Moscow.. restrooms near Red Square; Domodedovo airport sticker on our cart; random building.

Layovers and trips. Today, I’m a zombie, yet my head is buzzing. Recovering from a 7-day block to and from Moscow, Manchester (and an Almaty turnaround yesterday). I had a really good time! Basically, I went out  (gay) clubbing in Russia (Propaganda) and then (gay) clubbing in England (Canal St, like 5 different clubs), each time with a British guy from my crew (coincidentally they are also flatmates!). I have fresh knee bruises over old knee bruises, it was seriously fun. I’m quite proud of my get-up-and-out-let’s-party abilities 🙂

I want to write after every flight – jot down the endearing little details that I love so much. Like one Russian pax asking for какао (oh! cocoa!).

And one with a white corset costume splayed out on her traytable, supergluing diamontes onto it,one by one (connecting to Jo’burg!).

Freshly-made pizza at midnight after taking a coach bus (!) into the city, a nice belly lining before drinking myself into a stupor in a strange city and getting a lift back that I can’t recollect with strangers I can’t recall.

Still remembering to look through the windows of my workplace, and smile at the sky..

Interview. Another email today about the private flying job. It’s to be held next week in Bahrain, think I might be able to actually make it! Just waiting for a final confirmation that will come in the next two days.

Ibiza. B and his group are going back to Ibiza. They have been planning since Feb and now have a villa of 11 booked there. More than anywhere else that is exactly where I want to be next month – Ibiza! Amazingly it overlaps with my annual leave, but their villa is already at the maximum :(..  So not sure how it will all play out. I just can’t plan the way other people do, it makes me feel like I miss out. My style is to get wind of a trip when it’s just around the corner, and do my best to get the days off and go.

New flatmate. Came home from Manchester and there was a note stuck on the kitchen door. So, at long last someone is moving in! I haven’t met her yet but had a chat with the security guy downstairs, she’s German (I like Germans), and she has a boyfriend who has his own place in this same building.. well handy! Expect to see her in the next few days probably.

IATA. After around 8 weeks I hear that I actually passed my exam (from back in April). It spurs me on! 1 down, 3 to go!

World Cup. Haven’t had a chance to see any of the games thus far. Articles about the matches and the game in American men’s magazines got me all wound up. Who doesn’t have the fever, really? Group G, group of death, hello! I will be watching (still don’t understand ‘offside’ though). Backing Spain, Germany.. and the Asian underdogs!

Almaty International, Glorious Nation

Russian Bear

Russia as a bear with a hat (and India as an elephant; China as a pig with spectacles and also sporting a little hat)

Going to Moscow!!

Cyrillic signage! Natalia Vodianova’s birthplace! Vodka! Russian mail order brides! Mafia! Those wooden dolls that fit into one another! Billionaires! Tall blondes that never smile and who make me feel short and dark and kind of fat! Hurrah!

It will be my first time to a completely new country in over 6 months (last time was Turkey in Jan),  and my first time ever to a former soviet republic, or to Eastern Europe even! I’m thrilled and nervous and.. intimidated. I expect it to be very homogeneously white and everyone very somber and pissy. I need some Russian jokes..maybe I can ask the pax for advice on ice-breakers..

The metro is the best on earth, with 150 stations (!) and no English (!!). This is probably what I’m most excited about. On the outer lines a male voice is meant to indicate travel towards the city centre, and a female voice the opposite.

There is a jocular mnemonic about it: “If it’s a male voice, it’s your boss calling you to work; if it’s a female voice, it’s your wife calling you home..”

I only have 24 hours so I hope to fit in at least Kremlin and the Red Square and vodka and some kitsch socialist memorabilia! June is one of the best times to go as well i.e. when it’s not -18C.. It’s gonna be swell! 😀

I’ve been reading up on it so I know it will be expensive (need a lot of Rubles), the cabbies will try to rip me off (need a Russian), and the bouncers at places probably won’t let me in (as a woman, I need “high heels and a short skirt”). There’s some very amusing advice around – a guy from Mexico had this advice to offer (apparently it’s common for police to pester tourists for their paperwork):

If you don’t want to be stopped by policeman in the middle of the street and be sent to the “militzia”, try to avoid speaking when you are near them (as soon as they notice you are foreign, they will hunt you!), and just when you notice a policeman close to you, change your facial expression to a more “rude” one (just while you are near them). This helped me a lot while I was there.

Haaa!!! Funny.. except I’m thinking if you look Mexican there probably they will already have some idea you’re a foreigner? Regardless.. I will put on my bitch-face, proper.

Tunnel to a Dream

Satellite image of The Bering Strait, with Siberia on the left, Alaska to the right, and the Diomede Islands situated a beautiful dead-centre.

There’s a competition underway to design a bridge linking an 85km gap between the United States and the former USSR. This is around twice the length of the Channel that links Britain and France. The reality is that it’s highly improbable that any physical structure would ever actually come of this… But that doesn’t stop one being totally oh-so hooked on the idea. A distance of a measly 85km (give or take a few clicks) seems downright goofy in its shortness?

This project is a dream project attempting to connect two continents. In a wide sense, it includes building a tunnel or a bridge at both ends of the strait, extending an existing railways of the United States and Russia, and laying a world highway around the coasts of the world, which require a massive amount of construction.

Once the connection is made, the railway will go through both Uelen of Russia and Cape Prince of Wales of the United States linking the North American Rail System. A new highway will link the existing coastal highway of Uelen – Dezhnev – Tunytlino at Russia and Wales – Tin City – York at the United States.

There has been scientific stirrings that perhaps, in the past, lower water levels would have exposed a ridge allowing our ancestors to stroll between what is now Siberia and Alaska. This would also have been how the North and South American continents were originally populated.

It just seems particularly interesting to imagine a connection of the world’s extremities. Not counting the fact that these aforementioned extremities are but an illusion stemmed from the reproduction of a ubiquitous world map projections. Rarely would you stumble on a 2D global image in where Australia, for example, is ‘centered’ on the sheet. Rather Australia, more often that not, maintains a rather forlorn far-right posting. And why is this, anyway?

Further reading on the Bering Strait here at BLDG BLOG, and the Discovery Channel website.