Day #1 Traveling to Kazakhstan

I got a taste of what to expect, as far as the way things are run, while at the LAX airport trying to get my ticket from Russian airlines Aeroflot. Technically, any traveller can fly into Moscow and transfer to a different plane as long as they don't leave the airport. Well at the check-in desk they decided that I needed to have a transit visa, so the only way they would let me through is if the luggage was sent under Timur's name, but that would cost $335 because of the big favor. (They tried to justify it based on weight, but I couldn't follow any logic in it.) Well, this caused a huge argument with the manager and several employees. From what I gathered, none of this would have happened if I continued flying on their airline all the way to Kazakhstan or had gotten my ticket from a travel agent. Timur had no problems, since Kazakhstan (former USSR) gives his free access to Russia without any Visa. We eventually found a loophole: paying for extra overweight baggage, which ended up costing $54. One of the attendants spoke Spanish so I spoke with her honestly about the absurd situation and she helped as much as she could.

The flight was awful, but survivable. It was 13 hours long, 2 bad airplane meals, breakfast was a candy bar and plane tv's were broken, so no form of entertainment. Someone went into the bathroom and smoked, so we all had to sit when we finally landed so that some medical guy could point a tobacco detector into each of our faces. I think I was the only American on his plane. The flight attendants all spoke to me in Russian and couldn't understand any English.

Then we arrive in Moscow. The airport had some bright orange Soviet architecture with it's bold san-serifs cyrillic fonts, completely Russian Constructivist feeling- I loved seeing this. We got off and after two safety inspections go looking for a monitor that tells us where the Air Astana terminal is. We walked around for 30 minutes and only found an attendant at a desk, who only spoke Russian. She told Timur to walk to the next hallway of doors and go into the room with the gold handle. Yes-- this obscure! So we find the door, which has no sign and go into it. The room looks like a waiting room with a reception desk, still no signs, and the ladies there check us in for Air Astana. They were very kind and attempted to say "Hello" in english to me. This was the first attempt of communication I'd gotten from anyone all day, so I immediately decided Kazakhstan ppl are nice and I like them. (Yes, my mid needed to create this determination for sanity sake.)

Air Astana was a wonderful flight, with delicious food and snacks, entertainment, hot towels, eye masks, kind stewardesses, kind ppl sitting next to us-- reminded me on flying LAN in South America.

We got off the plane and went to get our luggage. The security guy took me aside because of my bolex. He couldn't understand me so Timur came in to find out what he wanted. He assumed that the camera was an antique that I was going to sell to someone in Kzakhstan, Timur explained t him that it was mine and not for sale and would be traveling back to the U.S.A. with me. We finally got out of the airport, Wednesday 5 am after leaving from L.A. on Monday at 6pm.