Travel Lessons From White Russia

We are very, very happy to be home. We learned many things on this vacation of ours, here are a few for you:

1. Make sure to put a couple extra days on your visa, just in case. 
2. You have to push airline people to take care of you 
3. If they say there aren't any other flights, you ask/request/require/demand them to put you on another airline and you get the heck out. 
4. Make sure you ask  what the cap is on your food allowance if your flight is cancelled
5. Luggage tags with hand written labels do make it (at least sometimes)
6. Belarus is a lot harder to get out of than into.
7.  Katie is not allergic to wasps (but would still rather not get stung)
8. Sometimes cutting in line is a necessity.
9. 3 hours is not a long enough layover in the Frankfurt airport. (we joked that 9 hours would have not actually been so bad, at least we could have relaxed)
10. Belarus has wonderful people but terrible customer service.
11. Giving towels as gifts is a very popular thing (at least in Igor's family).
12. Belarusian's make really great food.
13. You can sleep 7 people in a one bedroom apartment
14.  Chickens eat everything and flies bite

I am sure that there are many, many more things to add to this list but those are at least the initial ones. Thanks for reading and travelling with us. it has been fun. So until I have some new adventures to post, I'm signing off.

Lots of Love.

Part 2: You didn't think your were leaving did you?

The next morning we got a wake up call, dressed quickly, went down stairs, checked out, they made up breakfast bags with some meat, cheese, apples, oranges, and waters. it was very sweet of the girl at the front desk we had met the night before. We got into the cab and went to the airport. This time we made it through the first security area where they just send your luggage through a scaner, and up to the check in counter.

You know how in the US and in most other countries, or at least rather ever country I have ever flown to/in, how there are airline representatives who check you in...yeah, well not in Belarus. Nope here you have airport personal who check you in and as we found out upon trying to check in our luggage that hey they don't even have the same computer systems. How awesome! We handed the lady at the check in desk our luggage and passports, and I asked if there was anyway that they could check if Igor and I were sitting together on the Frankfurt SFO leg of our trip, the woman responded not to me but to Igor in Russia, "where are you going?" Igor says San Francisco, woman "I don't see that flight in the computer", WHATTT!!!??

Igor and the woman had quite a discussion back and forth, of which the jist was that she couldn't find our second flight in the system, she told Igor to go talk to the woman at the customer service counter, who told him to go back and talk to the woman at the check in counter. This back and forth went on for about 25 minutes at which point they hand wrote our luggage tag for Minsk to SFO, couldn't put it in the system, so to find the Lufthansa rep at Frankfurt and have them do it. All this after it being suggested that we pick up our bag in Frankfurt and re-check ourselves in, to which we replied that that was ridiculous and there was no way that we would have enough time to do that.

It took another 30 minutes to get them to print our tickets. They wouldn't really even talk to Igor. One guy who we had talked with briefly the day before told Igor to "shut up" several times and what Igor had done the day before was enough. We're guessing he was referring to how we asked them to call us a cab and take care of our hotel arrangements. The tickets that they finally printed us were just for Minsk to Frankfurt, we were to pick up the second set of tickets in Frankfurt when we took care of the luggage. So with 10 minutes to spare before our flight was supposed to leave we finally had at least some tickets in hand and went to the customs counter.

I should say that my Visa was only good through the last real day of our trip which was the day before and when they cancelled our flight they told us that it was ok and not to worry about the Visa. After all that we had gone through in the last couple of days you can imagine that I wasn't really sure if what they had told us was true or not. Just a minor hiccup at the customs counter, which was cleared quickly and we were boarding our plane shortly three after.

We arrived in Frankfurt about 10 minutes late, ran to the service counter, they got our luggage all worked out, though we weren't really convinced that it was actually going to make it, with its' hand written tag.  We got our tickets but there were no seats together left, no great shock there, ran to the train to get to the other side of the terminal and, crash! about 300 people all trying to get on the train! After waiting about 10 minutes Igor and I shoved our way on to the train, barely I might add. got to the A,Z section of the terminal and another 300+ person line was ahead of us to get documents checked and get through Security. So at this point it was 9:10 AM our next flight was to board at 9:35 and take off at 10:25... we're not proud of it but we cut about 1/2 the free formed line to get our documents checked. We still stood in line for about 30 minutes, finally got a documents checked then another 10 - 15 minutes to get through security. Once through we speed walked,/ walked really really fast to our gate which was #66 out in a hall that went from 50 - 69 (so pretty much at the end of the hall). And WE MADE IT. We were on the plane home.

Well after all that bad luck we finally caught a bit of good luck. Since we were both in middle seats we figured no one is going to want to switch with us. Well turns out that the woman who was supposed to be sitting on the aisle seat next to me had two small kids on the other side and wanted to switch with me. then Igor asked the gentlemen sitting next to him if he wouldn't mind moving to my newly acquired aisle seat so that we could sit together. the gentlemen of course agreed and so Igor and I enjoyed sitting next to each other for our lovely 11 which was really more like 12 hour flight back home.

Other than that we made it home safe and sound. Our bag did make and we worked hard to stay up as late as we could.

I'm sorry did you want to go home? Part 1

We had a very early start  to our day to go home. We arrived at the airport at about 4:45 AM went through security, checked our bag, went through customs and the second security (when I say security it's not like in the US I will explain later) and then we were in our terminal. Hoping to buy a bottle of water it seemed that all the shops were either closed or the ladies working them were "on a break." We found this problem other places in Belarus as well and I will explain in a little bit what to expect as far as customer service if you ever go to Belarus in about one more paragraph.

Exhausted and ready to go home we waited, and waited, and then waited some more. Our flight was scheduled to board at 6:10 AM. Well 6:10 came and went and there was no one from the airline at the gate. We had seen the pilot and crew get on about 30 minutes earlier but to this point there was no communication from anyone on why we weren't boarding. At 6:45 AM, twenty minutes after the flight was supposed to have taken off we finally got some information. "There is a technical problem with you plane, the flight will be approximately 1 hour delayed." Ok, fine 1 hour no big deal we have a 9.5 hour layover in Frankfurt so no problem.

30 minutes later this announcement it made. "your flight has been cancelled please go to the customer service desk." YOU MUST BE FREAKING KIDDING ME RIGHT??? Wrong.

We exit the terminal and are told to wait. about 25 minutes of waiting and we are told that we are not allowed to go into the customer service line on the other side of security until we have our luggage and they can't tell us when we are going to get it. So we wait. Since there are two of us, Igor decides to go wait in the customer service line while I wait for the luggage. 45 minutes later I finally got the bag and Igor had moved 1 person up in line. I took his place so that he could go walk around a bit. 1 hour passes, 2 hours pass. Finally by the third hour we get to the front desk, but oh yeah that is right only one of the clerks is actually working with the customers, the other wont even look at you or acknowledges your existence at all. so then another 30 minutes pass and Ahhhh we finally get to talk to someone!

Igor takes the lead because their English is terrible. After quite a bit of discussion we are told that they can get me home but not Igor because he would need a visa to make more than 2 stops in Europe. The lfight would be Minsk to Prague to Frankfurt to SFO. Then when we said "no" to that they put us both on similar flights to the ones we were supposed to have that day, with less layover in Frankfurt, 3 hours instead of 9.5 hours. They asked if we were from Minsk, which we assumed was because they would have just told us to go home and come back tomorrow. Since we weren't and did not feel like bugging Igor's relatives they said "ok well get a taxi and a hotel and make sure that you hang on to the receipts". I told Igor to ask them who we were supposed to give those receipts to, they said Lufthansa. I said ok but how?, they said I don't know bring them to any Lufthansa office, or at the airport maybe in SFO. Seriously??? So Igor told them that was ridiculous and how could they expect Lufthansa in the States to understand Belarusian receipts and how do we know that they would accept them etc.

After a bit more bickering we got them to call us a cab, pay for our hotel room, get us lunch and dinner, as well as get us a cab back to the airport in the morning. Which would have been better if they had bothered to tell us that there was a cap on the cost of the food. We got to the hotel, which was pretty nice. the people there were pleasant and after some discussion with them about why there was a food cap, which we weren't told about, and why we were only getting dinner when at teh airport we were told we would get lunch and dinner not just dinner, we were set for the evening. It was raining pretty much all day and was nice a cool, of course. lol

View from our hotel room

Last Days in Minsk

On our way back to Minsk with Igor's great Aunt (Zena) and Vasil (her husband) we stopped at a WWII memorial to the town of Khatyn, which was burnt down by the Germans who locked the people of the town in a shed and burnt them alive. You can read about this and the supposed 243 other villages that the Germans burnt down in Belarus HERE. It is a beautiful but sad place. They have put small towers with bells that ring sombrely to represent each house that was burnt in the village.

bell tower

Each of these graves has the name of a village that was burnt

leading up to the Memorial

On our last couple of days in Minsk we decided to do some sort of different stuff. On Sunday we met up with Igor's friend Anton again. We found a gym that had a swimming pool attached and spent a couple hours avoiding the heat in there. It should be noted that there was only one day during our whole trip that it was less than 86 degrees outside and that was the one day in Narich where it rained.

We had a fun time working out and swimming, although I did get lost in the gym. I thought that the boys were going to meet me in the lobby and then go out to the swim floor, they thought that I was just going to meet the out on the gym floor. So after 20 minutes of me standing in the lobby in my swimsuit waiting for them, a very nice young lady came in and asked me if I was looking for the swimming area and to follow her, where I found the boys already wet as they had been swimming in the pool. Anyways, communication is key and when you don't speak the language you can find yourself waiting half naked in a pool lobby. lol

After our fun exercise work Anton had to go so Igor and I decided to walk around Minsk. We went into the biggest shopping store in Minsk to see if we could find any fun souvenirs for you lovely folks back home. We did have some luck but not a lot.

A little later we met Igor's friend Serge and his wife Nastia (short of Anastasia) had a little dinner and then went for a lovely walk around the oldest part of Minsk. Apparently there is an archaeology museum in Minsk, so I made Igor promise that on our next trip to Minsk he would take me there lol. While walking in this section we saw a folk band play outside one of the churches so we stopped to listen and watch some spectators dance. We also visited a park that is called the Island of Tears, which has a memorial to the Mothers and Soldiers who died in the Afghan War (Soviet War in 1989.)  Apparently it is tradition for newly weds on their wedding day to walk over the bridge to the Island of Tears and for the Brides to touch this statues little winky so that they will have many healthy children.

Serge and Nastia said they didn't do this. Overall it was a very lovely day.

Goodnight Minsk

On Monday Zena and Vasil, were kind enough to drive us to the castle Mir (pronounced Mear). It was a lot further away and not what I had expected but I still thought it was nice because of all the history. You can red up on it if you want HERE.

Katie at the tippy top of the tower

"lovely plumage"

Once back from Mir, Igor and I went back into Minsk and spent the day walking to a couple of the places that he had lived while in University and we broke my mom's rule of never eating at American restaurants and ate at McDonalds for lunch!! Then later in the afternoon we met up with one of his friends Anya (pronounced An-yah) and her son and just set and chatted in a park.

We returned to Zena's where we were staying, at about 9:30pm had some dinner packed and tried to get some sleep as we needed to get up at 3:45 AM to make it to the airport in time for our flight home on Tuesday.

Maybe the last post of the vacation

As our vacation is quickly winding down we are trying to keep our spirits up. We still have a couple of days and a very very long flight home (22 hours total because of our 9 hour layover in Frankfurt ugghh).

Today was a bit  of a lazy day. I went fishing with the boys in the morning for a couple of hours. they caught more fish than I did but we still had a good time of it. I think I caught the biggest fish of the day, which is pretty good anyway. the gents (Igor, Vasily Jr, Vasily Sr, and Vasily) went for a quick dip in the lake on our way back from fishing.

Shortly after we got back from our mornings excursion the whole family came to Zaslonava and we all went together to the "Sacred Springs." I can't speak for the guys but we ladies did pretty good this time. Zena, Masha and I got in without hesitation dunked three times in the icey water, got out and repeated two more times, to make it a total of three frigid dips. I wont lie it was difficult the third time as I was already somewhat chilly but it was very refreshing since I was sooo hot before we got there.

Igor, Masha and I jumped out of the car on the way back (since we didn't walk this time and no new tanks stories for you, sorry to disappoint), to go for a little swim in the river. Since I have been talking so much of the river I thought that I would provide you with some pictures of our happy little swimming spot.

the fishermen

Tomorrow morning we are off to Minsk where we will stay with Zena and Vasily until it's time for us to get on our plane and head home. Here's to hoping that it's cool in the Bay Area when we arrive!!!

I love vacation but I am very much looking forward to sleeping in my own bed!!!

the Neice, The Cousin, The Brother, and more

Late on Wednesday Igor's brother Vasily (Vasil) arrived with his new daughter (3 months old), His wife Maryna and his cousin Masha (from Orsha). Thursday we went swimming most of the day and just visited with the new arrivals. Friday was another very full day. We got up relatively early and drove into Minsk with Igor's brother (for sake of easy we will call him Vasily Jr, because this is going to get confusing here in a minute). The purpose of our visit was so that Vasily jr could make a payment on a flat that he recently purchased in Minsk (it is still being built and their plan is, once finished to rent it).

We figured that while we were in Minsk for the day we might as well have some fun, so when Vasily Jr had made his payment we went over to the Central Park in Minsk where there is an amusement park of sorts and played there for a little bit. We went on a fairs-wheel (~150ft high) then Vasily Jr and Igor went on some sort of tilt-a-whirl ride that I could only look at periodically. And!!! I got a picture of the ride that Masha and Igor had gone on in Orsha, for you, so see below for those.

Vasily Jr.'s Flat will be in the building on the right

On the fairs-wheel

Vasily Jr. and Masha

Minsk from 150ft up

View of where we started

Igor in action

Ohhh the spinny-ness

Ride from Orsha

We headed home at about 2:30ish and then after a short rest we went to Zamosa (the village) for another Russian Sauna experience and another Family BBQ. Here where I promised it would get interesting; in attendance were Vasily Sr., Vasily Jr., Other Vasily, Maryna, Iryna, Zena, Masha, Babushka, Igor and I :).
After another rather amusing Sauna experience where the tree branch beating was a little more beating like (lets put it this was, I was picking pieces of tree leaves off me for the rest of the night lol) I got to have another lovely and unexpected Belarusian experiences...I got stung by a wasp.

You know how they say that Red heads of a lower pain threshold than others and that it takes more to knock us out, numb us, and overall deal with our pain. Well let's say that getting stung by a wasp sent radiating shock waves of pain through out my whole shoulder and even into my neck. I yelled, and then cried like a little girl. Igor told me later that Zena catches wasps and let's them sting her on purpose. Supposedly it is some old folk remedy for something to do with veins. All I have to say to that is Zena is one tough broad.

Anyhow, other than that we had a lovely evening. My shoulder hurt for the rest of it and then when I woke up this morning it was incredibly itchy, which is what Zena told me would happen. Stupid wasp.

Fish cooked Belarusian style

Vasily Sr. with Rita (the baby) and Iryna trying to get her to smile

whatever she did worked

Vasily being spotted by the ladies while holding the baby

Happy grandparents

Mommy and the baby (she looks like a little monkey holding on to a tree branch)

Igor

The women of the family

Katie playing at the well

Orich? No, "Orsha", like "Porsha" without the "P"

So let's see, after the tank interruption where were we? Oh yes, we have made it to Igor's grandmothers house in Orsha.

We spent the rest of Saturday and Sunday visiting with Igor's grandmother, Aunt and cousin in Orsha. Igor's grandmother has lovely house in what appears to be a new developing ritzy area. This is somewhat of a deceiving description since Igor's grandmother has lived in the house for a long time and, from what he told me they just put in running water a couple years ago, though it still house an outhouse style bathroom.The house is located with some other older houses that my guess is will eventually disappear and be replaced with new apartment buildings a some point.

The outhouse...

Laundry area

eating area

Igor's cousin Maria (Masha for short. Don't ask, it's a Russian thing. It doesn't make any sense to me either, even though Igor and his sister in law Maryna have spent much time "tilting at that particular windmill") took us to a local swimming hole. Not the cleanest water that we have swam in by far but it was somewhat refreshing after a long day of car travel with Anton and Alyssa. Sunday, Masha took us to a little amusement park (no pictures, sorry forgot my camera. I know I must get better about that). We had fun jumping on trampolines, Masha and Igor rode some sort of double spinning ride, which I could only look at periodically to keep from feeling sick. The ride spun clockwise and then the individual compartments you sit in spun upside down so you tumble head over heels or heels over head, which ever you choose, which Igor insisted on doing lots of times. It did look fun though, just sorry I have such a weak stomach.

Since there was really no where to swim particularly close, the place that we went on the first day was about a 45 minutes walk. Igor, Masha and myself took to filling buckets of cold water and pouring them over ourselves in the garden, serving a duel purpose of cooling ourselves and watering plants. Here are some funny pictures of Igor enjoying his refreshment.

boy and his bucket

On Monday morning we got up somewhat early, said our good byes to Igor's grandmother and cousin, his aunt had to work so we said goodbye to her the night before. We got on a rather nice train and road back Zaslonava. The rest of our Monday was spent swimming in the river, which I will post pictures of later, and enjoying the breezy weather that finally decided to grace us with it's presence.

Igor's aunt, Igor and Masha (she is only 16 but she look very mature)

Igor's Aunt, Katie, Masha (I keep thinking she looks like Tapanga Lawrence from "Boy Meet's World", no?)

Tapanga Lawrence, come on...kinda.

Igor and his grandmother

TANK!!!!

So breaking from the narrative of our journey that I was so out of range of internet connection to be able to relate to you. Today Igor and I went to the "Sacred Springs." A religous site where ice cold water springs up from the ground for you. Not sure what religious saint or miracle makes the sacred springs sacred, and Igor didn't seem to know either.

Anyhow, we waited our turn and then dipped ourselves into the freezing waters. Igor completed the three dunks necessary for a full cleansing of sins, I only managed 1 full dunk on my third try at entering the water, which Igor told me was fine as the posting on the wall said if the water is unmanagable one submerging is adequet.

sacred springs

Igor's father told us later that Igor's mother and brother were unable to get into the water as it was too cold.

All this to say that on our way back we were having a lovely little strole through the woods when out of no where... TANK!!! lol Igor and I waved to the guys one perched atop the tank and another with his head poking out just enough to see his face a cap. I would have taken a picture but figured it was probably better to not....maybe next time. :) but it was something like this (though they came and crossed much slower)