[ Tuesday, October 22, 2002 ]
Trying to set some kind of speed record, I present:
Tales from Cairo #5
Still reeling from my encounter with the Psychological Experiment Door, I wandered into the waiting area. I had eight hours to kill in this building before I moved on to my six hour flight to my final destination. Seeing as most of the people coming through Sheremetyevo seemed to be on long layovers, the airport was clearly designed to accommodate people who would be there for a while. For example, I managed to spot three distinct methods for getting drunk before I even left the terminal. I imagine this was also helpful for whatever poor lost soul was on the other side of the camera pointed at the PED. What a miserable existence that must be, sitting in a room somewhere being paid soviet minimum wage to stare at a little screen and push a button whenever someone official looking appears. It was enough to make me feel better about my own place in the world just then.
Passing one of the paths to drunk, I rounded a corner and faced a makeup counter surrounded by bathrooms. Honestly, this place was more like a moderately sized shopping mall than an airport. Except with a lot more vodka. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that you probably could have filled between two and three olympic sized swimming pools with all the alcohol in this airport. There was an irish pub in there, for god's sake. Plus the full service pharmacy and the walk in humidor. That's just on the ground floor, too. There was a whole upper level lounge area that was only for people travelling first class. Obviously not me. Looked really posh, as well. Alas.
Anyway, I continued walking aimlessly, trying to get a feel for the layout of the airport. I passed a series of little alcoves, filled with people on horrendously evil chairs. The only available seats were these cushionless metallic things strategically covered in bumps and ridges to prevent any hope of comfort. There were people sleeping on these things, that was the amazing part. Sprawled out over three or four of them, using bags as pillows.
For me, sleep was out of the question. Ignoring for the moment the fact that the airport was reputed to be crawling with mobster types and even if I did wake up in one piece it would most likely be without my bag, this was still a bad idea. I was so far gone now that once I fell asleep I might be just as likely to sleep for days as for hours. Missing my flight would be a Bad Thing.
I also took note of the impressive TV available for our viewing pleasure. It was a Sony flatscreen of decent size, but the content seemed slightly questionable. I only glanced at it for a moment, but it seemed to be Destiny's Child performing...one of their songs. That was rather unappealing, so I moved on.
Passing the newsstand and the video store (yes, video store) I spotted a few more duty free shops and passenger alcoves. Then I spotted the makeup counter and bathroom array that I had passed on my way in. Having come full circle and seen all there was to see, I turned back to investigate that newsstand. It was essentially full of european porn and some stranger military aficionado publications. Then I headed back to one of the duty free shops to look for some souvenir type objects. Noticed a few promising possibilities, but decided against actually getting anything just yet. Wandered into the video store and found Russian editions of some of the most unlikely American movies. Russian Harry Potter, been there, done that. Everything was pretty much too expensive to justify on novelty value alone, so I moved on. About then I received a call of nature and made a beeline for that bathroom alongside the makeup counter.
I stopped just shy of entering, on the verge of a heart attack, when I noticed that the men's room I was aimed at was actually the women's room. Now, I was absolutely sure that the men's room had been there a moment ago. Still, I took it in stride and reoriented myself for the opposing bathroom.
This time I think I actually did have a heart attack. Just a little one, though, so I was ok. I had found the men's room, but it was the wrong men's room. The one in my mind had a big scrape across part of the lettering, whereas this one was clean. Plus it had a huge smiley face sticker across the head of the little male icon.
Needless to say, I was...slightly concerned. The evidence suggested I was losing my mind way ahead of schedule. This was unnerving, but since there was little I could do about it that didn't involve investing in vodka, I decided to just make use of the facilities and investigate further.
A word on the bathrooms in Sheremetyevo airport. Horrible. A brief elaboration on that word. The bathroom seemed to be a relic of a previous design concept for the airport. Like...back when it was a Turkish prison. The floors were covered in a disgusting film that appeared to be composed of all major bodily fluids. The sinks produced only cold water, and it was a color that water should generally not be. There was a marked absence of toilet paper. Not simply as a matter of negligence, though. It was a matter of principle. Fortunately I was prepared for this eventuality. Most importantly, though, all of the stall doors came straight down to the floor and locked quite firmly.
This gave rise to an interesting phenomenon. Namely, although I stood in the bathroom for upwards of fifteen minutes, not a single soul ever came out from one of these stalls. Combine this with the odd noises emanating from one stall and it became obvious that people were using them as safe havens for sleeping. Not a bad idea, but it seems like it would be intensely uncomfortable.
Back to my previous dilemma, I walked around the airport backwards on a hunch and found the bathrooms again. The original bathrooms, devoid of smiley face and in the proper order. It was downright creepy. For the first time, I didn't turn around at the bathrooms but just kept walking instead. After rounding a couple of corners past the bathroom I found...a wall. A dead end. An impassible terminating barrier. Then and only then did it dawn on me that this airport was not one big circle. It was actually a large SPIRAL with odd angles involved that for some reason contained two identical stretches with a makeup counter and two bathrooms. Seriously identical. I wasn't just being obtuse and tired, they were practically indistinguishable. The signs on the makeup counter were the same, they were both opposite big duty free shops with perfectly replicated window displays. It was sadistic.
My faith in my own tenuous grasp on reality now renewed I went and sat down by the PED again. It was the only part of the waiting area with available seating, and that was kind of hit and miss. I took a seat next to a nice Indian family and watched poor naive newcomers fight with the door. It was quite entertaining in a fiendish sort of way. When that got old I broke out House of Leaves one last time before my eyes told me to fuck off once and for all. Having about six hours left in Moscow I entered into a kind of airport trance. It's not as restful as it sounds, but it's as good a place to stop as any.
Carter [5:42 AM]
[ Sunday, October 20, 2002 ]
Since it's been a while, I present:
Tales from Cairo #4
So there I was, I Moscow. Sheremetyevo airport, the tenth circle of hell. I got off the plane, excited to be able to walk again, and managed to go about twenty feet before I got lost. I was faced with a choice, the stairs on my left or the big arch on my right.
About half the people that got off the plane headed down the stairs towards the big sign that said things about customs and visas. I was informed that I could get a 48 hour tourist visa with a minimum of fuss. Well, the soviet minimum, at any rate. This was tempting, but since I have been known to bend certain laws of physics just so that I can get even more hopelessly lost, the odds of my being able to find my way back to any given point in the middle of Russia was rather laughable. If I missed my flight I would really be in a world of screwed, so I opted to stay in the building.The other half of the people headed through the arch, which was only labeled in Russian, and seemed to be completely devoid of staff. At least it kept me in the building, though.
I went up to the most official person I could find, who happened to be a stewardess, and asked if she spoke any English. She shook her head and gave me a look that was halfway between blank and horrified. She didn't get what I was saying, but she could probably tell I was American, so she would have assumed I was talking about how I had just strangled her pets. I tried to look non-threatening and addressed her in Foreign English. As you know, Foreign English is just like English, only louder and with fewer syllables. For example, this was a situation where I would normally have used the English phrase “I just got off the flight from New York and I need to make my connection to the Aeroflot flight bound for Cairo, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that“. Making very inquisitive gestures, I said “I-DON'T-KNOW-WHERE TO-GO”. She pointed at the big arch and said, in Foreign Russian, “TRAN-SIT-YA”. I thanked her and walked off.
That was enough to make up my mind. I sauntered in and found myself surrounded by Asian tourists and various European businesspeople. Still no staff. Every three minutes or so, a stewardess would wander in and tell us that she could not help us (once in English, I'm guessing about the rest) and that we should wait here for someone who could.
This was funny the first two or three times, but after that I started to get annoyed. It didn't help that I had hesitated too long when I was staring at customs and everyone had taken all the chairs by the time I arrived. I tried playing Guess the Language with random groups of people for a while. I managed to identify a Korean family, but only by benefit of the writing on their bags. Other than that, I lost.
Eventually a woman in an airport uniform wandered in out of the hallway. She gave us this look of “What? There are people in here? How can this be? Oh well...” and then walked over to the little airport terminal thing and started typing. One of the Europeans walked over, looking rather irritated, and asked for help. She told him to sit down, and continued typing. At least I think that's what happened, since my best guess at the language was just “germanic” I couldn't actually understand what they were talking about.
She typed for a while, in that peculiar way that airport people do. When she was done she looked up at us and said a lot of things I couldn't understand. On this cue, most of the people formed a line at the counter, and I decided it would be best to join them.
There was one sign posted in this room that was in English. It informed anyone who was interested (in English, no less) that due to an executive order from someone with an extraordinarily long name the airport was no longer offering free meals to people on long layovers as of April.
Now, for some background here, I did plan ahead and do a little research before I left home. In addition to the cursory linguistic research, I checked with sleepinginairports.net. I didn't bother to look at the key, but I think the large skull and crossbones symbol was their subtle way of telling me that this might not have been a good idea. My favorite was the story about the man who got a free meal from the airport and after having his meal voucher quite heavily scrutinized he wound up with a bread crust, a bowl of cold gruel and a glass of saltwater. So believe me when I tell you that my disappointment at not receiving my free meal was overwhelming.
Upon reaching the front of the line I handed over all the relevant papers and watched the woman type some more. After a moment she looked up and me and said “Did you know that your bags are only checked as far as Moscow?”
It occurred to me at this point that airport employees are probably not particularly inclined towards quality service after they realize that anyone who realizes that they've done a half-assed job will be several thousand miles away at the time. This is fortunate for them, since if I were any closer to that woman in Logan airport I would quite certainly have hunted her down and hit her with a brick.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. So I just took a deep breath and said “No. I didn't.” and she nodded in a slightly too knowing fashion.
“Ok, well, I'll just recheck them to Cairo for you.”
“Thank you very much.”
After some more typing, she handed me my boarding pass and pointed me towards the rest of the airport. I passed through a bizarre Architectural Oddity. It was like an array of portable plastic hallways. Each one complete with plastic floors, walls, and ceilings. About five feet long, and all inseparably linked together. Not end to end, mind you, but side by side. My first impulse was that they might be metal detectors, but they seemed excessively large, and completely isolated and inert. Even later when I witnessed the staff carrying obviously metallic objects through them. They did, however, serve as a gateway between the big room beyond the check-in counter and...the rest of the big room beyond the check-in counter.
Beyond the Architectural Oddity and slightly to the left I found the Psychological Experiment Door. This was really quite annoying. It was, at its heart, a sliding glass door with a handle and a small doorbell style button beside it. When I reached it, I grabbed the handle and pulled sideways. The door refused to open. Fearing a Midvale school for the gifted moment, I pulled in the other direction. Then I pushed directly away from me, and pulled in towards me. Still nothing. Evidently it was sealed in some invisible way.
Not to worry, I thought. That must be what the button is for. I pushed the button, and waited for an ATM style buzzing noise. When no noise came, I tried the door anyway. Still nothing. Then I tried pushing the button and jiggling the door handle at the same time. Didn't work. I tried pushing the button, waiting a few more seconds than I had before, and then trying the door. No luck. I tried tapping out SOS, CQ, and the opening of Beethoven's 5th, but the door just wouldn't cooperate.
Eventually I gave up and sat down. At least there were chairs next to the door. After a moment one of the Europeans came out through the Architectural Oddity. He tried the door a few times, then looked at me questioningly. It was a mutual assumption that we had no common language happening, so I just shook my head. An Asian family wandered out a little later, and the father started trying the door. He got a little upset when it wouldn't open, and just kept shaking the handle.
At this point, a stewardess type passed through, and was nice enough to press the button and open the door for us. This seriously freaked me out, so once I was through the door I sat in a chair just on the other side and watched the door.
Some more transfer passengers came up to the door, and tried various methods for opening it. None of them worked. After a while, an airport official would come through, press the button, and open the door. I tried to get a look at the exact way they pressed the button, but it never seemed to be consistent. I tried observing the timing between the button press and the door, no pattern there either. It took about 15 minutes for me to spot the tiny wall mounted camera 20 feet away.
I felt kinda stupid for not noticing it before, but it really seemed like a weird way to do this. They could at least put up a sign or something. Anyway, after the door incident I left for the rest of the waiting area. It actually managed to get much, much weirder.
Carter [4:24 PM]
[ Monday, October 07, 2002 ]
I have a floor!!
And for the first time in many years I can tell you, with complete certainty, what color it is. Go me.
Let me explain. Dan brought a truck and spent his weekend helping me clean out the room. God knows what motivated this, but bless him just the same. We've made distinct progress, although the room is still...well...a rancid shithole.
It took two days, but we managed to clear out almost all of the Valley of the Damned that lies between the TV and the bed. This was accomplished mainly by shoving things into industrial garbage bags and then throwing them out the window. We then spent a while sorting and organizing the salvagables. However while I was excavating a cache of Dr Pepper bottles, I inadvertantly triggered a moderate avalanche in one of the banks of Brickside Pass. Although it was quite painful at the time, I quickly realized it made conditions in that area much more auspicious. This prompted a fullscale assault on the western face of Mt. Junk. Thus far it has met with some success, although the two main peaks remain unchallenged.
A few of the more interesting items unearthed during the course of the expedition:
-A film strip projector that appears to date back to the late 50s or so. I really don't know...
-My original 8-bit Nintendo, as well as some of its finer games. I have faith that the Atari cannot be far behind...
-Two video cameras. One of them works. Kind of.
-A bag of 5 1/4" floppy disks. They're...green...
-A coat rack. It has coats on it. That disturbs me.
-The floor. By far the most impressive. It's bluish grey, if you're curious.
Carter [1:28 AM]
[ Tuesday, October 01, 2002 ]
Huh...
This is interesting. My logs indicate that someone has been habitually reading my blog whose IP is registered to an ISP in Sweden.
...uh...ok...
I don't know anyone in Sweden. At least I don't think I do. We may just be friends by association, or perhaps they just wandered in here at random.
Well, whoever you are, if you'd like to drop a comment I'd certainly be interested in knowing how you found me.
Carter [3:24 AM]
