Day 193: Surviving Ourselves, Sergey

So. Where we have been. So we did the TransMongolian from Beijing to Ulan Bator, Mongolia (with that great passport-less weekend day layover on the Chinese border) which was more or less three days in an overheated train with smelly people and only Ritz crackers to eat. Then we did a bit of the Transiberian, which was more of the same. Then we realized we had no time and could not see Russia due to the fact that our Business Transit Visa (the only one we could get for Russia from Mumbai, India back in July) was running out. And then, then, then we got off the train in Irkutsk, Russia, and spent a few days seeing Lake Baikal (the coldest and deepest lake in the world) and generally enjoying what was really a fantastic city.

Then we went to the airport for our scheduled flight to Moscow to eliminate 3 more days of train time. This plan was going to enable us three more days to see fine, fine Moscow. We felt very on top of things. However, our flight coincided with Siberia's first snow of the fall, meaning that we spent 2 days in an airport, an airport restaurant, and an airport hotel which resembled the disgusting apartment where Jennifer Connelly and her daughter get killed in that bad scary movie, Dark Water. Our savior throughout this entire process was Aeroflot employee Sergey Shantarin, who was an angel of a man.

After dealing with us and our ignorance of all things Russian airlines for 2 days, he saw us off on a flight he had finagled for us with these words:

"You look like a camels!" (In reference to the bags). And then, more meaningfully: "Survive Yourselves!"

Sergey, we have, but only barely. And it is only thanks to the help of individuals like you along the way. Other individuals, like our mothers, and Diana, have been especially incredible as of late in the ongoing problem of not being able to call 1-800 numbers from wherever we are. We will post more on that next to give them proper thanks.

Now in Moscow, we have done touristy things and are just heading off to see Lenin's mummified body before leaving for Cairo, because that is the obvious next stop after Russia on this well planned out itinerary.

Free Lance Note:

October 25, today, Hearst Lawyer Superstar Eve Burton filed the Ninth Circuit Appeal to keep Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada from 18 months of jail time. We thank her for her ongoing work in this sad battle, and we also extend gratitude to writer Pamela Redmond Satran for all her online plugs recently to get Mark and Lance support from journalists nationwide. Like this one! Aside from being a baby naming expert and showing up in US Weekly when celebrities name their children things like Apple, Pam has no less than four excellent novels you should check out, because Claire/Lara/Bbop/Court have read them all.

As always, check out www.MarkandLance.org to read daily updates on the mess, sign the guestbook, and be a generally informed person. And there's an article in Sports Illustrated on Lance and Mark coming this week, so we'll forward that on when we hear news of its online presence.

Finally, here's a pic of Dennis the Pilot in one of the Sportswriters for a Free Press t-shirts selling like veritable hotcakes! We're just waiting for ours to get to Cairo.