How I became a Silver member on Aeroflot in 4 months

The past 5 months can only be summarized with one word – incessant travel. As you know, the Diplomat and Son are currently in Moscow where Son attends school, and I work in Yekaterinburg and fly to see them virtually every weekend. That, or we all travel somewhere else together instead.

For example, in October, we met in St. Petersburg. It was all wonderful and very pretty, except that it rained the entire time we were there. It made for a very soggy experience and we would have to come back in order to actually enjoy the visit.

In November, we all went to India to see the In-Laws in Chennai. It was largely an uneventful visit used to spend time with family and eat good home-cooked food, walk the dusty streets and even snag a few cocktails in the bars that have recently cropped up all over the city. We did go to see the new apartment, which the In-Laws have bought in the city in a luxury high-rise building with a swimming pool and gym, and so much more. The catch – the building is still being built. Thus, we arrived at the construction site, very strong wind causing piles of sand to fly all over us, and not only were we allowed to walk all over the place but were in fact ushered into a shaky (and tiny) construction elevator, whose doors were held together by a rope. Along with my rising terror, we slowly went up to the 15^th or so floor, and gingerly got out to step on a wiggly thin wooden bridge and onto the unfinished floor. Going down was even ricketier and hair-rising, if that was even possible.

And then for the Christmas holidays, we went back to Bulgaria to visit Mom, and see friends and family. Then the Diplomat and I left Son with Mom, and flew to Madrid to drink sherry and eat tapas. Everywhere we travel, I always try to find places frequented by locals only. That is how we ended up in La Venencia on Calle de Echegaray. This lovely old-fashioned bar serves only sherry, the happy hour (1-3 pm) choice of Madrilenos. They don't allow photography inside, otherwise you would see the moldy high ceilings, the accounts written in chalk on the wooden counter. It is ridiculously cheap and tips are not allowed. People have to stand up at the bar and actually talk to each other! After three food and drink-filled days there, we flew over to the Canary Islands, where we met the New Year in the balmy 75 degree weather of Gran Canaria.

A few days later, happy and slightly sunburned, we came back to Bulgaria, picked up Mom and Son, and went up to ski in the snow-drowned resort of Borovetz. While Son re-learned how to ski in lessons, and Mom hiked around the slopes, the Diplomat and I enjoyed the immaculate slopes, stopping for the occasional strong drink to fight the crazy cold. After an exhausting 3 weeks of vacation, we went back in Russia, ready to go back to school and work.

And then, a mere 2 week later, I went to Paris for a long girls’ weekend away with some fabulous friends from Brazil. The trip started with an overly talkative taxi driver from the airport, who did not speak more than 5 words of English (and me – the same in French), but upon hearing that I had arrived from Russia, assumed that I was Russian and did not stop praising Putin for the next 30 minutes. Because of the language barrier, it was not 100% clear what exactly the driver was talking about but then he suddenly pulled out a video on his phone, showing the Russian president singing “Blueberry Hills” at some event, and proceeded to loudly sing along with the video. Once it was over, he simply added in his terrible English – “Macron is shit. Putin – real man!”

 The whole three days in Paris remain a blur to me, with dinners soaked in endless bottles of champagne, dancing until 5 am in secret underground clubs, shopping fabulous French dresses in the (governmentally mandated!) post-Christmas sales, and the icing on the cake – a visit to the Crazy Horse cabaret. Now, we have all heard and even seen on TV scenes from Moulin Rouge – pretty ladies in skimpy clothing, dancing frivolously in sexy unison on the stage. The Crazy Horse – a whole different level of skimpy, mostly expressed in a circular bandaid of sorts on the crotch area. Yup, there was a whole lot of naked that night. A fitting end to an incredible weekend.

After all the money spent on clothes, I decided to be a good girl and take the train back to Charles de Gaulle airport rather than pay for a taxi. After reading extensively on which train to take to where, I took my small hand suitcase and walked decisively to the metro. It did not start well (and did not continue well, for that matter) – the ticket machine refused to take any of my credit cards and I did not have a dime of cash. Cursing, I had to get out and go into another entrance where I found an actual agent and my credit card worked. I managed to make it to Chatelet from where I was supposed to take the B train to the airport. First I got on the wrong side of the tracks. Up and down a few escalators, and I was at the right place finally. Then I carefully read the signs to make sure I am getting on the right train. And then I got on the wrong train. 15 mins into the completely wrong direction, I managed to get off, change the side (yup, a bunch of escalators up and down again), and eventually get a train back to Chatelet. Change sides again and finally got on the right train. At this point, I realized that I am going to miss my plane. Highly uncharacteristically for me, I had left 3 hours earlier (I was planning to do some final damage at the duty free), so there was a glimmer of hope. I spent the next 35 minutes glued to the map of my phone, watching the small blue dot on it showing how excruciatingly slow the train was moving. Once at the airport, I cut every single line, begged and pleaded with everyone to let me go first and made it barely breathing at the gate, 10 minutes after boarding was supposed to begin. And then it turned out that nothing had even started there. Oh well. It gave me a few minutes to actually start breathing again. The rest of the trip back was uneventful.

Now some further impressions of life in Russia:

1. Russians are obsessed with wrapping their suitcases in plastic wrap – you have all seen those packing machines at the airport. They wrap them small and big, they wrap even hand luggage, boxes, gym bags, and backpacks! I will never understand why.
2. Russians know cold and do not joke about heating. Every inside space here is aggressively heated – whether it’s the mall, the opera house, a museum, airplane, hospital – it’s hot, hot, hot.
3. Russians do not jaywalk. Ever. This is the most (unnecessarily) disciplined pedestrian society. It may be -20F, there may not be a car in 10 km sight, but no one (apart from me) would even think to set foot on the street until the lights change.
4. Everyone drinks everything warm (see point 2 above). That includes warm water in restaurants, and, sadly, warm white wine. When I demand cold beverages, I am given distrustful looks.
5. Every restaurant offers hookahs and Russians smoke them everywhere, including expensive Japanese restaurants and the corner coffeeshops. There is no escaping them – anywhere you go, in any city, you are destined to eat your dinner and watch everyone around you enveloped in thick, sweetish smoke.

The Russia adventure continues.