Our Trip to Russia - Part one

I have no idea how many parts this story will have, but here I go.

JUNE 25th

We left for Russia this morning at 5:45am because our travel agent told us to get to the airport 3 hours early for international travel. We got to the airport around 6:15 am for our 8:45 flight. A little bit less than 3 hours, plenty of time - right? RIGHT! Checked in and ready to go by 6:40 am. So to kill time we decided to eat a Farewell Nashville breakfast. What better place to do that in the airport than Noshville. Nothing like a good southern breakfast to kick off the trip!

We boarded our plane at about 8:15. It was a small plane that took us to Washington, D.C. Only 19 rows, 3 seats across. And...we were in row 19. Let's just say that someone used the bathroom before the flight started and we might as well have been IN the bathroom or rather port-a-potty. It's a good thing I had mint gum to sniff. :) I must say we laughed rather hard about the whole situation.

We arrived around 11:30 am into the DC airport and our flight out to Russia wasn't until almost 5:00 pm. We walked all around the DC airport. Had a sit down lunch to kill time. Bought Clark a book to read on the plane. Looked at some expensive noise canceling earphones for the plane (didn't buy). Then sat around and checked the email on our computer. Talked to several United Reps about the fact that Clark and I weren't seated together on the 9 hour flight. United finally found us seats together. (Little did we know - they actually upgraded us for free to the economy plus section). We boarded the plane and walked through first class and business class. Look at these seats!!

First Class tickets (booked on the same day) were around $8500 roundtrip to Moscow!!

Business Class tickets to Moscow (booked same day) were around $6000!

Our economy tickets cost us almost $1600 roundtrip per person to Moscow. The cheap seats. :0) The flight left an hour late due to there being a baggage issue at the DC airport. We immediately moved our watches ahead so that we could mentally prepare ourselves for the time change. Moscow is 9 hours ahead of us.

The flight was full, which completely surprised us. I mean who goes to Russia on vacation? I guess more than we thought! Clark mostly watched the movies playing and I read. We slept a little bit, not much though. Then we landed and it was JUNE 26th - almost noon in Moscow. It was a very surreal feeling getting off the plane in a foreign country.