My 1st time

привет, my friend!

If you thought the title refers to my first sexual experience, you have a dirty filthy mind.

The title refers to my 1st time in the Moscow office, which was today. After a very bad night of sleep still under the influence of the infamous jet lag monster, I woke at 7am (11pm NY time) and got ready for work.

I was picked up by a company driver, and in 30 minutes I was at the most amazing business center I have ever seen my company at. The complex consists of 4 six-story buildings, which was just finished last September. The people I'll be working seemed extremely nice, and I had lunch at the cafeteria (beef liver and buckwheat) with another expat.

At 2pm, I was picked up by a real estate agent to start looking for a place to live. Saw 3 places: one near the office, one closer to city center and the last one somewhere between the other two.
The theme for house-hunting was "don't judge a book by its cover": buildings in Moscow are extremely run down, with old elevators and dark hallways. But everything changes once you enter the apartment: parquet floors, stainless steel appliances, neatly tiled bathrooms, etc.

I believe I will rely on public transportation during my stay in Moscow. Drivers are quite aggressive here, and may drive at 120 km/h on an urban avenue. Furthermore, I've never driven on snow, which should start accumulating by early October. So far, the apartment I liked the most is just 600 feet away from a subway station which is just 7 subway stations away from work. I will see some more apartments tomorrow, but I'm really close to settling for that one.

пока!

PS: I was about to publish this post, when I saw my wife's comment to my early post asking whether I am eating vegetables. Just for the record: I just had a grilled salmon steak with broccoli for dinner -- the menu originally had boiled potatoes, but I asked to replace it with broccoli.

Expect the Unexpected

привет, my friend!

One of the joys of knowing a new place is finding unexpected things. Today was filled with surprises.

Suprise #1: As I was going to the subway, I realized there is a small subway entrance two blocks away from the hotel. This is much closer than the main entrance, which is on the other side of a huge boulevard and takes me 10 minutes to get there.

Surprise #2: I was going to visit a neighborhood called Arbat, famous for its quaint streets and art deco mansions. I left the subway through the wrong exit, but ended up at the footsteps of the Lenin Library, which is a beautiful building but was nowhere in my guidebook. In front of it, there is a huge statue of Dostoievsky.

Surprise #3: Across the street from the library, was the Kremlin, which I was not expecting to see today.

Surprise #4: according to Lonely Planet, the walking tour was supposed to last 4 hours. Fortunately, I was done in 2 hours, because my right foot hurts a lot. One of the sites of the tour was a mansion that now hosts the Canadian Embassy (eh!)

Surprise #5: one of the stops was the Tserterili Gallery, which shows many pieces from Georgian artist Zurab Tsertirili. Lonely Planet calls him prolific, and they are right. There are tons and tons of pieces, and they are all gorgeous. There are bronze sculptures, enamel paintings, drawings, oil paintings -- at one point, I thought some of the art did not belong to him, but I was wrong. I checked his website, and he is the author of the statue in front of the United Nations building in New York. My favorite piece was a courtyard that housed a huge bronze apple, with bites around it. It is possible to walk inside the apple, where the walls and ceiling have sculpted figures in each of the Kama Sutra poses. Here is a pic of the outside of the apple:

Surprise #6: my recently-discovered subway entrance is past the little 'bodega' where I usually buy bottled water. The good news is that I found a better and larger store across the street from the hotel.

Surprise #7: the hot dog stand near the hotel was closed and I needed a quick snack. I entered a little bakery shack near the hotel expecting they would only serve bread. Good news: I ended up having a small yet very tasty quiche.

Surprise #8: my plan was to come back to the hotel in time to watch the German Grand Prix of Formula 1. I'd thought it started at 5pm. However, I got to the hotel at 4:30pm, and the race had already started at 4pm. Well... I never said that every surprise was always a pleasant one.

Tomorrow is my 1st day in the office.

пока!

In English and non-smoking!

привет, my friend!

Yesterday I had dinner at a place called Coffee House (кофи хаус in Russian) -- like a Fran's Cafe in Sao Paulo or a Starbucks that also serves sandwiches and salads... and alcohol.

Dinner was good, but ordering in Russian with the help of my Oxford dictionary was quite challenging. There were also three guys chain smoking at a nearby table (2 feet away), and I had to put my Febreeze into action as soon as I got back to the hotel.

Since Coffee House is just 3 blocks away and yesterday's dinner was decent, I decided to come back today for dinner. As soon as I entered the place, a sort of maitre'd woman approached me and asked me something in Russian. I told her my usual Russian phrase of "I don't understand Russian", and she asked me in English "Smoking or no smoking". I got a table at a non-smoking section. Brilliant!

As I was sitting down, she brought me a menu which was written in English! I ordered the same as I had yesterday, but this time I actually knew what I was eating. Brilliant!

I think I will come back tomorrow for more English and non-smoking.

пока!

Underground Museum

привет, my friend!

During our last vacation, we traveled to Turkey and visited a place called the Goreme Open Air Museum, a place filled with caves that were used as churches by Christians from the 13th to the 19th century. It was called Open Air Museum because each cave was painted with beautiful frescoes and one only had to walk 500 feet to go from one cave to another.

I guess I just found the Moscovite equivalent to the Open Air Museum, but it happens to be underground: the Moscow Subway system. Today I spent about 3 hours visiting several subway stations, which were built under the orders of Stalin in the 1930's and all bear communist themes in the form of mosaics, sculptures, and porcelain.

Each station has a different theme, e.g., Bieloruskaya features farmers from Belarus, Kiveskaya portrays the friendship between Ukrainians and Russians, Komsoloskaya has mosaics of past Russian military heroes, and Mayakovskaya is entirely art-deco.

Since my brother is the photographer of the family, I will only post a couple of my crappy pictures.

Check the links below for panoramic pitcures of a couple of stations taken by a professional photographer:
Ploschad Revolyutsii station: http://beeflowers.com/Metro/PloshadRevolutia/mainpage.htm
Kievskaya station: http://beeflowers.com/Metro/Kievskaya/Kiev1/mainpage.htm
Prospekt Mira station: http://beeflowers.com/Metro/ProspektMira/mainpage.htm

After such an odissey, I tried to take a walking tour from my Lonely Planet guide book but was overtaken by exhaustion and returned to my hotel. Today I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning, had breakfast at 3am and went to the gym at 4am. That's New York time, of course, but I am sure that's how my body reacted.

I have been battling sleep for the last couple of hours, as I want to go to bed at 2pm (10pm NY time). Hope I don't fall asleep on my keyboard.

пока!

Going for a walk

привет, my friend!

Right after my previous post, I went for a walk around downtown Moscow. I went down Tzverskaya Boulevard (I dare someone to say Tzverskaya three times really fast while eating Nilla wafers), until I reached the Kremlin. On the way, I passed many familiar eateries, such as Sbarro (2 of them), McD's, KFC and TGI Fridays (wihout the TGI, I'll try to find out why).

Downtown Moscow is awesome! The Kremlin is really impressive and St Basil Cathedral is the most beautiful building I've ever seen. The church was built to honor the victory over Mongol Tatars in 1555. The legend has it that, after its completion, Ivan the Terrible asked the architect whether he would be able to replicate such a magnificient building. The architect, who wanted to please Ivan and was probably on the lookout for new contracts, said he could certainly replicate it. Ivan then had the architect's eyes poked out to keep him from making anything to rival St Basil. See pic below:

On the way back, I followed my habit of eating junk food from street vendors. I had the Russian version of a hot dog, which is made by poking a hole into the bread (like an olive without its pit), squirting mustard in it and then sliding the weiner. Interesting and very tasty. This is me eating the hot dog:

Well, that's it for the day. I'm gonna have dinner now and go to bed, before jet lag kills me.

пока!

Flying with Dan Quayle

привет, my friend!

My first post from Moscow -- finally!

During a visit to Brazil in the early nineties, former American VP Dan Quayle thanked the Brazilian government for its hospitality during his stay in Buenos Aires. In case your knowledge of world geography is as limited as Quayle's, Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina, Brazil's archrival. The Brazilian spokesperson was quick on his feet, and took revenge by calling him Daniel Quayle, hence playing on the assumption that Dan is short for Daniel (it's actually short for Danforth).

This how my story begins... Livia dropped at JFK yesterday. No traffic at the Licoln Tunnel or in the city, but as soon as we got to Queens, the sh-t hit the fan -- I mean, only the fans that were not affected by ConEd's blackout. We hit traffic on 495 and Van Wyck, and got to the airport 90 minutes before the flight departed. Check-in was a breeze, as Delta had a special terminal for Business class.

Saying goodbye to Livia was terrible, and I won't get into many details otherwise my tears may short circuit my laptop.

Anyway, I had just sat on the plane and was playing with all the toys from Business class, when this Russian guy sat next to me. Next to us, a Canadian (eh!) was telling a Chinese gentleman that he was a professional hockey player. Then suddenly the Russian guy who was sitting next tome interrupted their conversation to tell the Canadian (eh!) that Russia is much better than Canada, that Russians only play in Canada for the money, that NHL sucks, etc. Pretty funny...

After badgering the Canadian (eh!), the Russian guy starting chatting with me. In spite of hockey hooliganism, he turned out to be really nice: told me he currently lives in Cincinnatti, has 2 kids, etc. I then told him I worked for Colgate, and not surprisingly he asked me if Colgate belonged to P&G, that he knew a lot of people from P&G, and yada-yada-yada.

A couple of minutes into our conversation, I told him I was from Brazil. He then told me he had a very good friend who went to Brazil for Carnival, and loved it! His friend actually called him from a cell phone down in Buenos Aires, during the Carnival parade. Had I known his name, I could have pulled a Danforth Quayle on him. One of those moments we will always regreat not making fun of someone...

The remainder of the flight was uneventful, my arrival to Moscow was easy and I was met by the company driver. I am right now at the hotel, and will start exploring town in five minutes.

пока!

On my way (for real!)

привет, my friend!

My lovely passport arrived on Tuesday with a lovely Russian visa stamped on it. My ticket was issued yesterday, so I'm on my way in just about 5 hours.

My farewell party was fun, and thankfully nobody roasted me. It was held at a great bar on the rooftop of the Library Hotel. Awesome food, specially the crab cakes and beef teriaky sticks.

Packing is also done, here's a picture of my suitcases. Not too bad for someone who has to be there for 6 months during winter -- heavy coats took half the space of the black upright bag...

I'm flying direct to Moscow via Delta, so I should be there in about 24 hours from now.

Livia has been pretty sad, which kinda sucks. I am going to miss her dearly, and it breaks my heart to leave her alone. These will be the longest 180 days in history...

More posts when I get there.

пока!

On my way (I think...)

привет, my friend!

I spoke with travel today, and they said that the visa application went well and my passport should be ready tomorrow morning.

Now, back to packing...

пока!

Packing

привет, my friend!

Still in New York... but this may change soon :-)

The past week has been very stressful! The invitation letter was finally issued by Colgate Russia, but people here in New York were trying to identify an agency that could submit the papers to the Russian Consulate. There were also some questions in regards to the letter from Russia, and for a split second I thought that the whole process would come to a halt and that I would have to apply for a visa all over again.

They applied for my visa this past Thursday, and I hope to get my lovely passport with a lovely Russian visa next Tuesday. If everything goes according to plan, I should hop on the plane on Thursday and be in Moscow on Friday. On Tuesday night people will throw a farewell party for me at work, probably accompanied by a roast. Sh-t, I'm sure my VP will have a list with 100 jokes on me!

I spent the whole day packing, and hopefully everything will fit in 2 large suitcases and 1 small bag. I don't want to be walking around the airport like a Brazilian smuggler coming back from Miami with 20 iPod Nanos hidden in my private parts.

Here's a picture of me wearing an ugly Russian hat that I bought when I first moved to New York. I was talking to my mom on the phone, hence me not smiling :-)



I hope the next post will have some more good news.

пока!

Learning Cyrillic

привет, my friend!

Still in New York, this week they will probably tell me when I leave for Moscow.

Since I have transitioned most of my projects to my replacement, I've had a lot of spare time a work. Therefore, I took the time and embarked on the journey of learning Cyrillic.

In Russia, very few signs are written using the good old Latin alphabet. According some of the books I've been reading (I'll talk about them on a separate post), it's impossible to navigate the Moscovite subway system without knowing Cyrillic.

The origin of Cyrillic is pretty interesting. It is named after St Cyril, who supposedly created the alphabet together with St St Methodius. Most of the letters came from the Greek alphabet, so if you ever think that Cyrillic is Greek to you, you're 100% right!

As I was studying, however, I noticed that some letters were similar to Hebrew. Surprise, surprise... they were Hebrew indeed. Because Cyril (whose maiden name was Konstantin) and Methodius were Greek Orthodox priests, they also know Hebrew and borrowed a couple of letters that language.

After all, Cyrillic is not that hard. After a week or so, I can read pretty much anything, even though I have no clue as to what most of the words actually mean.

If you ever feel the urge to understand Cyrillic, here are some resources to help along the way:
http://www.ukindia.com/zip/zru1.htm
http://waytorussia.net/WhatIsRussia/Russian/Part1.html
Teach Yourself Beginner's Russian Scrip (Book)

пока!

1st item in the suitcase

привет, my friend!

Yep, still in New York. Instead of rambling on my visa issues, I'll start talking about step 3 from my previous post.

When packing for trips, a comfortable pair of jeans is the first item I put in my suitcase. This time will be different though. As you may know, the weather in Moscow is pretty cold. According to www.weather.com, the average low temperature in December is around 16 degrees Farenheit (aka -12 Celsius, aka freakin' COLD!).

Therefore, the first item in my suitcase will be the comfy Columbia winter boots I received today in the mail (see picture on the right)

They are water-resistant, insulated, rated to -25 Farenheit (-32 Celsius) and an "aggressive tread outsole" -- you gotta love Marketing baloney! Anyway, I did quite a bit of research online, and found the best prices at www.sierratradingpost.com and www.zappos.com. Zappos offers free delivery and free returns, so it was an easy pick.

пока!

Going to Russia

привет, my friend!

I'm still in New York. Here's why...

Traveling overseas is usually easy:
Step 1- get your visa
Step 2- buy a ticket
Step 3- pack your bag.
When it comes to Russia, Step 1 is not as simple as it seems. In order to get a Russian visa, you need to be invited by an entity affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
And that's where I am stuck right now... waiting for the invitation letter. It may take between 1 and 18 business days to get such a letter, depending on the visa status (tourist or business) and number of entries (single, double or multiple). Guess which kind of visa I need? If you answered the "one that takes 18 days", you're correct! In order to get a multiple entry business visa, be prepared to wait 18 business days for the invitation letter before you start arranging for a visa.
Some good resources are:
http://www.waytorussia.net/Travel/VisaSupport.html
http://www.cibt.com
http://www.visatorussia.com
DISCLAIMER: I am not recommending you use any of them! These are just websites that give a lot of information. The company I work for uses CIBT -- I'll soon find how good they are :-)

пока!