transit therapy #4

Bored-a-pescht (a.k.a. Towards The Beloved)
   
Relative to my normal routine I've had quite a lot of 'thinking time' lately, so these last few entries have been more ruminatious (a word I just made up) than usual. I hope you're enjoying them, and sincerely apologise if you're not. Promise I'll get back to the usual "Hey, look at the cool stuff!" format soon, combined with the usual dysfunctional travel stories that bring so much Schadenfreude to so many.

(Well, to a few anyway.)

Meanwhile, bear with me while I continue ruminating just a little longer.

Let me start with something I've said before in The Manor, but which bears repeating here for context's sake: in September 2007, when I first arrived in Almaty, I really wasn't sure that I'd made a wise choice. There were quite a few moments when I honestly wondered whether I should just admit my mistake and get on a plane outta there, without further delay.

The thing is, though, I've gradually learned that when you move to a new place you're always going to have these doubts during the early days. Auckland was a case in point: if you'd asked me how I felt about it, say, a week after my arrival, the answer would've been something like "Let's hope it gets a whole lot better, 'cause right now I'm having a truly shit time." And as you probably know, I grew very fond of Auckland, to the point where leaving it was bitterly disappointing. And being the romantic optimist that I am – or at least, that I've recently been told I am – I still dream of returning one day.

The point, however, is this: when you arrive in a new place with the intention of settling there, you've got not only time but also money on your side. Ties with your previous employer have been cut, so your only immediate means of earning a living is to perservere in your newly-adopted home. And with the prospect of money coming in, you just try to ride out the stresses of the first few weeks, then see how you feel about the new environs once you've had a chance to meet a few people and discover a few cool things.

That's what happened to me both in Auckland and in Almaty, and I'm sure it'll happen again if I decide to move in July when my contract runs out.

When you're travelling, though, the situation is a bit different. If you're on a tight budget (which I always seem to be), you don't have time to invest in places that initially come across as ugly or bland or unfriendly, or where the 'vibe' isn't right for you. Therefore, if you find yourself in a place like that, sometimes you have to make a snap decision: do I stay and  hope that my first impressions were a bunch of big fat liars, or do I move on to somewhere else that stands a better chance of engaging me?

I realise that none of this is particularly shocking information. The surprising thing for me, though, is that I now have to add Budapest to the list of places that failed the test.

I really was expecting to be impressed by this city. Why? Well, apart from anything else, every person I've ever met who's been there has loved it. I know they loved it, because they've told me at some length about how total phantastisch it is, and assured me that I was certain to fall for its charms. And I believed them.

I'm a little shocked, therefore, to be sitting here now in a rickety train carriage about two-and-half hours outside the Hungarian capital, and heading away from it as rapidly as I can.

I should probably be feeling disappointed about this whole not-warming-to-the-Budally-Peschtian-vibe issue, but actually I'm not so bothered. There are several reasons for this.

For one thing, I think there's a certain poetry in my present situation. I mean, here I am on St. Valentine's Day, heading towards a city whose name translates roughly into English as 'Beloved'. That's pretty poetic, right? Okay, so the fact that I'm going there alone takes away from the romance a bit – but hey, I never said it was a perfect world (or if I did, I was probably pointing at a computer running Windows at the time, so you should've known I was being sarcastic).

The other reason for my lack of disappointment is that I've actually been planning to visit The Beloved City – known in its native language as 'Ljubljana' – for about six or seven years now. Ditto the country which surrounds it. Many of you have no doubt heard my rants on this subject: I'd say things like "It's my #1 must-see country!" or "I make plans to go there every frikkin' year, and somehow it never works out".

Well, here's the good news: give me another six hours or so, and you'll never have to endure those rants again.

With Budapest inspiring me about as much as a pork milkshake, and my #1 must-see country looming just over the border, whispering "Hey Anthony, here I am – you can come and get me if you want me!", it was all too much of a temptation. After a restless night in the hostel, tossing and turning and wondering if I should give it more time, I woke up this morning and said to Scott "Listen, I've made my decision. If there's a train to Ljubljana today, I'm on it."

I asked Scott if he wanted to join me, and he said "Maybe, I'll think about it". He thought, and he thought, and he thought ... and eventually the time rolled around when I had to get in the taxi and go. Consequently, he's still thinking and I'm now travelling solo – which to be truthful is how I usually like it.

So then ... here I am, alone on St. Val's, on a train and on a Mission. I'm tired, I'm stressed (because it's a nine-hour journey and there's no smoking carriage), and due to a problem exchanging Kazakh Tenge for, say, any other goddam currency on Earth, I'm really not sure my money will last.

The truth is, none of that matters when you've got the travel bug in your system. I could scarcely be more excited if I was going to the Moon.

I'll let you know how things pan out in my #1 must-see country (a.k.a. Slovenia) when this winding little tale is yet again

(to be) continued

transit therapy #3

time-trapped in the twilight lounge

So, when we left the narrative (if you could call it that), Mr Scott and I were looking for a way out of the post-New Year doldrums. Some decisions were made, which led me to my present situation.

Being in quite a different headspace now, it's a little difficult to reconstruct the exact motives and thought-processes involved ... but in any case, both of us realised (consciously or otherwise) that some Transit Therapy was needed. No doubt that's at least part of the reason why I'm not writing to you from my usual rickety desk in Almaty tonight. Instead, as I type this, I'm sitting in Sheremetyevo Terminal C, looking out over the tarmac in the last place I thought I'd be any time soon – namely, my old home town of Moscow.

Weird old thing, life ... don't you think?

With eleven hours to fill in here at the inescapably dire Sheremetyevo airport, I must say I could do with a good flashback. How about you?

*cups hand over ear*
*hears nothing*

Ok then, I guess it's up to me. In which case ... let's flash!

Despite the aforementioned haziness, I do remember a few weeks back thinking "I need to get out of Almaty for a while". And then, almost before I knew it, the two of us were sitting in the back of a taxi with a disturbingly cross-eyed Kazakh man, rocketing along the highway towards the airport (and using both sides of it – I mean, why waste a whole 50% of the road?).

A couple of hours later I was in an airport shuttle, heading out from Gate One towards my plane and thinking more or less the following thoughts:

"So here I am, about to take my first trip with an airline that 98% of the people I've met during my life have never heard of, flying towards a city which I was glad to escape from with all my limbs, for a holiday I can't really afford in a country I know absolutely nothing about, and I can't actually remember deciding to do this."

And then, the follow-up thought:
"Sometimes it really is good to be me."*

Obviously the Transit Therapy was beginning to work.

Flashing even further back now: when Scott and I left our flat in Almaty we didn't actually have tickets to Budapest (our eventual destination this week). We'd bought them online and were supposed to pick them up at an Aeroflot office in the city of origin, but – surprise! – the Aeroflot office proved impossible to find. Later we discovered that, despite there being several addresses for said office on various websites, it doesn't in fact exist.

At Almaty airport, we therefore faced an unenviable situation: we were about to enter Russia with no visas and no proof of our intention to leave again. This is not the kind of thing that generally endears you to Russian authorities.

We pleaded for someone to call ahead and arrage to meet us at Sheremetyevo with our tickets, and after some time the check-in staff relented and helped us. So, as our Air Astana** flight landed in Moscow five hours later, there was an announcement on-board: "Will Mr. Cook and Mr. Benson please meet with our crew?" It was the first time I'd ever been named on a public address system inside an aircraft, and it was odd.

We were met on the tarmac by an extremely polite airline guy, given our tickets and then whisked in a private bus to our transit lounge. I'd imagined said lounge would be a gleaming, soulless shrine to the wonders of duty free shopping (with maybe an Irish pub thrown in), but instead we were taken to where we are now: a vastly improbable office-cum-lounge room type thingie with a tiled floor and a view of the tarmac.

If you can imagine the common room of a large youth hostel crossed with a slightly deco-flavoured pub bathroom – and if you can imagine sharing this space with uniformed airport officials (one of whom just bummed a cigarette from Scott) – then you're on the right track. Throw in a bit of hospital reception, and you're getting closer. Finally, add to this picture the delightful tendency of female airport officials in the Russian-speaking world to improvise on their uniforms, adding stiletto heels, split skirts, fishnets and other vampish touches to the ensemble. Ok; now you're nearly there.

So anyway, I'm lying on a soft and comfy sofa in this little corner of the Twilight Zone, looking across at the one and only shop. It's called 'Moscow Duty Free', and it's closed. Not just closed, in fact, but empty. The smoothly-curved shelves are completely unstocked, there's no cash register, no light fittings in the ceiling, and a bar across the door. Next to another of the comfy lounges sits an airline meal tray, looking profoundly out of place at zero feet above sea-level, with plastic wrap across the top and a few stray mouthfuls of cabbage salad remaining in one of its plastic containers.

Behind me there's an empty cardboard box which initially contained our 'supplies' for the next 11 hours. It was full of fruit juice, bottled water, vodka and fizzy drinks, all bequeathed to Scott and myself by a group of Lithuanian businessmen who departed the lounge soon after we arrived. Unfortunately one of the Russian guards decided he liked the look of these items, so he basically walked up and took everything we had, shooting us a cocky look that said "Let's see you try and stop me, visa-less foreigners!". Meanwhile, in front of me a wide-screen TV is showing a Naked Gun movie, badly dubbed into Russian.

Still, at least the lounges are plush. My body clock is on Almaty time (i.e. it feels like about 3am), so I'm sure to need a little shut-eye soon.

As I fall asleep tonight, I'm probably going to contemplate the strange feelings that stirred in me as our aircraft approached Moscow. Those of you who've been reading this blog for a while will remember that, after living there for almost a year, I definitely wasn't sorry to leave. I had some great experiences in Moscow and met some wonderful people who I miss quite a lot, but unfortunately it was just an inhospitable and difficult place to live as a foreigner. On the day when the taxi took me to the airport and I left the city, I remember looking out of the window and thinking "Wow ... I survived!" And I still don't know how some of the gentler souls I met there (Hi Astrid and Sasha!) manage to live in such a harsh environment.

And yet, as we flew in, I couldn't escape the feeling that, from the air, Moscow is probably the second most beautiful city I've ever seen. (The prettiest without a doubt is Bahrain, which looks like an enormous, glittering coral reef from above.) Then, once we'd landed, I spoke to several friendly folk at the airport and watched the chicardniye Muscovites going by as they made their way towards passport control. It was so strange! I suddenly found myself wanting to follow them out into their grand metropolis, just to lay eyes on it one more time. Weirdness.

Maybe as my experiences with Russian people start to add up (first in Moscow, then Sydney and now Almaty), I'm becoming a little bit Russified in my outlook. Or else I'm just beginning to appreciate a bit more of the 'whole picture'. Certainly a lot of things that used to annoy me about russkaya kul'tura have slowly come to make sense over the past few years, and I've even begun to like some of them.

This in turn leads me to think that maybe, if I went back to Moscow now, I'd have a different experience. I still don't believe it'd be the place for me (it's too big for one thing, and possibly even more dangerous for foreigners than it used to be, with ultra-nationalist organisations flourishing and literally getting away with murder nowadays), but I suspect I'd find more to appreciate than I did in 2005-6. Maybe I just wasn't ready the first time around.

And that's three maybes in one train of thought, which as we all know = one kto znayet?***. Certainly not me.

Ok, enough of these musings – focus, Anthony! I just need to survive one night in Sheremetyevo's Twilight Lounge, and I'll be in Budapest by lunchtime tomorrow. You'll be sure to hear from me at some point while I'm there. Until then ... do svidaniya!

Anthony.

continue here


* Plagiarised from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but nonetheless heartfelt.

** See, I told you you'd never heard of it!

*** "Who knows?"

transit therapy #2

timely reminders (a.k.a. killer headwear)

Ok, so what was I saying? Oh yes: down and dejected in a foreign land blah-de-blah, but preparing to say something upbeat about the whole situation.

*rolls eyes*

Well, I guess I've locked myself in to this course now, so fine ... let's continue with it.

What I'm about to tell you fits loosely under the heading of "When badness happens, try to do something life-affirming". However, a lot of people seem to associate this word 'life-affirming' with things like going on meditation weekends, reading inspirational literature, having friends around for dinner, spoiling yourself with hot oils etc. etc. ... basically all the feelgood stuff.

Personally – at least for the purposes of this rather silly blog entry – I'm opting for a more literal interpretation of the term. I say that, when life has you by the wrinklies, the best thing to do is something which affirms

a) that you are, in fact, alive;
b) that being alive is a LOT different (and preferable) to the
    alternative; and
c) that the line between them is easy enough to cross, so you might 
    as well make the most of being on this side of it while you can.

That might not seem hugely innovative, but it's a new idea for me. Or at least it's one that's been percolating in my brain for years but has only just become coherent.

It all fell into place about three weeks ago, via an affirmation technique which I can't guarantee will work for anyone else, but which I encourage you all to try anyway for the sheer demented fun of it. It's quite simple, and a lot better for your heart-rate than chanting "I am a unique and special human being" until the logical bits of your brain are too numb to argue.

Here's what you do:

First, take yourself off to an outpost of the former Soviet Union, where the traffic conditions are as about as sane as a Japanese Advertising Executive sprinkling cocaine onto his soba noodles.

Second, after a quiet drink with some colleagues, step out onto the road and hail a taxi to take you home. (A brief memory-jog: this will mean a private car, since official taxis are few and far between here, and not to be trusted anyway.)

Third, to maximise your pleasure – or your terror, depending on whether or not you enjoy dicing with death as much as the next person – ensure that your taxi is an old Lada being driven by a tall, lanky and not overly sane-looking Russian guy in his mid-20s, with a huge shapka* towering about nine inches over his head. Agree a price with his surly front-seat passenger, climb in the back and hold on. You're about to get a timely reminder that your corporeal, non-dead status really does matter to you.

To give you some background on how I came to discover this wonderful form of therapy: in Almaty, getting from A to B is a much more significant part of daily life than it has been in the other cities I've lived in. I work in three different schools, and have to go to and fro by whatever means possible. It's a city perpetually on the move; roads are always full and a little chaotic, and The Great Commute offers memorable vignettes of life in KZ's former capital.

The Commute can make you angry – as when ticket machines were installed on trolleybuses last month, and conductors stood next to their new toys bellowing instructions at passengers as though they were disobedient prisoners in a forced labour camp. It can make you smile – like the taxi ride I had about six weeks ago, during which my middle-aged driver and his travel companion gently criticised the Australian government for refusing Almaty Zoo's request to have a kangaroo delivered to Kazakhstan. It can disturb you – as when, while sitting on another trolleybus one day, I was roused from my thoughts by the *thud* of another passenger falling from her seat and hitting the floor, head first and unconscious. And it can even open doors (the metaphorical kind) – as when you get a driver who's interested in learning English and he/she asks you for private lessons.

Or, it can be completely 'normal', dull and uneventful. You just never know.

Anyway, back to my Russian driver. This guy could've walked straight off the set of a gritty German or Scandinavian drug-culture flick. Impossibly thin, grungy leather jacket, wild look in his eyes, he balanced a cigarette skilfully on his bottom lip as we roared through the streets of Almaty, occasionally swerving to avoid potholes and other moving vehicles. I could see he was approaching this real-life situation the way teenaged boys approach a game of Grand Theft Auto – not so much with safety in mind as with the thrill of the ride.

Sharing the taxi with me was a French Canadian teacher (and fellow beret-wearing freak**) called Nico. Now, I have to tell you that this man is no shrinking violet; he's the only person I know who's brave enough to actually ride a frikkin' bicycle in Almaty, and he continues to do so even after having been hit by a car once already. Still, as the Orthodox religious icons dangling from Shapka Man's rear-view mirror swayed wildly to and fro, I could see that Nico was nervous. And rightly so – we were quite possibly going to die.

Meanwhile, and unexpectedly, yours truly found himself absolutely relishing this manic death-ride. Nought-to-lose, recently skewered in the emotional nethers, squished into a tiny uncomfortable metal box and blasted by hot air and terrible pop music, I was feeling the most exhilirated I'd felt in ages. It was, in a word, awesome.

At one point, the rightly-concerned Nico put an arm on our driver's shoulder and said (in English) "Hey man, slow down!". The driver responded with an uncomprehending "Shto?" ("What?") and I translated, trying not to burst out laughing at the whole situation. Suddenly I felt that my decision to reject the normal lifestyle of a western 30-something man – the one where he basically acquires his own domicile with matching mortgage, fills it with plush chairs and works hard on becoming pointlessly affluent, suburban and sedentary – had been the best decision I'd ever made. Because ... because ... well, because of a dozen reasons, but all of them summed up by the fact that I was right there in that car, right there at that moment, fumbling for the words to translate a request that was clearly going to be followed for no more than five polite seconds. So this was where my life had thus far led me; how random, and how fabulous!

I know this may sound a little condescending, but as we continued our Petit Prix I just had to think to myself "You know, I feel SO sorry for anyone who's never been catapulted through the slums of an outlying former-Soviet city by a chain-smoking, shapka-wearing Russian stick figure in a creaky old Lada!"

In other words, I was having the life-affirming moment. I realised that, if I died in this car, it would be better than having stayed at home with my plush chairs. And if I didn't, that meant I could take the less-travelled road a little further. Or something like that, anyway.

Of course, there are limits to what one 15-minute ride in a taxi can do for you, and before long I was back in the doldrums ... though not quite as far down as I had been before. Luckily I had my flatmate Scott to commiserate with. He'd been enduring a pretty awful time himself throughout January, and both of us had found the week-long New Year holiday (when the school had closed) a strangely depressing time. As a result, both of us were heading into 2008 feeling deflated and uninspired.

As we talked about how to claw ourselves out of this ditch, the idea of 'transit therapy' began to surface (though we didn't name it at the time – I did that later). Scott started talking about taking a break from KZ, meeting up with friends in other places and taking some 'real' time off. I don't remember the exact moment when it happened, but before long we'd pretty much decided to take our next cue from King Arthur's Knights of The Round Table (or at least from The Monty Python versions of same). We'd decided, in short to "Run away! Run away!"

Lucky we did, really, or I'd have no topic for Part Three of this ridiculous ramble.


to be continued even more ... 



LATER POSTSCRIPT 

Ooh, isn't this exciting? Don't think I've never had a later postscript before!

Just wanted to say how thrilled I am to know that my little rants have prompted some true creativity. My good friend Mr Benji, of the electronic band Freefall, recently sent me their new composition 'Shapka Deathride', inspired by the entry you've just read. It's great! Thank you, Benji ... I feel flattered ))) 


* Shapka: those furry hats you've seen either
   a) in documentary footage about Russia/The USSR; or
   b) in James Bond films; or
   c) in Russia or the former USSR itself, if you've been there.

**Now that I think of it, there was some great headwear in the Lada that night! We must've looked pretty damn stylish to passers-by - at least from the neck up.