6/9, Travel Day: Planes, Trains & Automobiles (but not in that order)

(Blog by Wade today!)
6/9-6/10: The Planes
Well our travel day finally arrived. We got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight out of St. Louis. However, the plane that we were supposed to leave on was late getting into St. Louis. I started to get worried as I knew we had a very short connection of 55 minutes in Atlanta. We ended up taking off from St. Louis 40 minutes late. We made up a little time in the air, but when we landed I knew it was going to be close. Unfortunately for us the plane parked at gate 3 in terminal A and we had to get to gate 33 in terminal E. I say unfortunately because that is the furthest possible distance someone would have to travel making a connection in Atlanta. We got to the subway transfer station in about 5 minutes, leaving us less than 10 minutes before the other flight was scheduled to depart. Also keep in mind that they typically close the aircraft doors a few minutes prior to departure. After getting off the subway we ran, well at least I did. Someone else decided to wear crocks, and couldn’t quite keep up. So being the athlete that I am I ran ahead to stop them from leaving without us. When I arrived at the gate they were making the final and I mean final boarding call for the flight to Moscow. Even the flight attendant didn’t think that we were going to make it since our flight was so delayed. And now comes the funny part. So we get on the plane (hot, sweaty and tired from running) sit down buckle up and the pilot comes on the intercom and announces that we are having some maintenance issues and that we will be delayed about an hour to make the repairs. Amy said that there weren’t any delays on the first trip and maybe I was bringing on some bad luck. She may have a point as the in-flight movies only worked for the first 2 hours, but other than that it was pretty smooth all the way to Moscow.
6/10: The Automobile
After landing in Moscow we met up with Mia our translator who told us that we were actually leaving for Astrakhan today instead of 6/11. This was actually good news as there was no point in staying the night in Moscow anyway. So we left the airport at about 12:00 noon and went straight to the train station (yes train station as the airport in Astrakhan is closed for remodeling.) The car ride was an eye opening experience to say the least, as driving in Moscow is like a game of chicken. There’s lots of traffic and not many rules when it comes to the road. I’ve driven in New Jersey & New York before and they got noth’in on Moscow. That being said our driver was excellent and got us to the station safely in 1.5 hours. Our train left at 3:15 p.m. so we did have some time to buy some snacks and review the next leg of our journey.
6/10-6/11, The Train
We boarded the train and got all 4 pieces of luggage, 2 backpacks, umbrella stroller, camera case & purse into our quaint private compartment. Luckily it had some overhead storage for 2 pieces of luggage and the stroller, and some under seat storage for another suitcase. It had 2 long padded seats that faced each other with a small table in between. It also had a big window and a small flat screen TV as well.
We knew ahead of time that the train ride was supposed to take approximately 28 hours, and now we know why. This train reminds me so much of the Metrolink only on a larger scale. If you are not familiar with it the Metrolink in St. Louis goes from the airport to downtown. It goes relatively slow and makes frequent stops at all the stations along the route. Well our train was very similar to this as we stopped at every city, town & village along the route. Some stops only lasted 5 minutes and some last 45 minutes. You could get off, walk around and buy things from vendors at the station but we choose to stay on. The other issue with the train was speed, for most of the trip it was only going about 30 mph. It’s capable of higher speeds as during the night it got up to at least 45 or 50 mph. The scenery along the route started out as rolling hills with heavy vegetation including lots of white birch trees. The closer to Astrakhan we got the terrain became flatter & drier with less vegetation.
We arrived at the Astrakhan station at 7pm our time (10am St. Louis time)and Vica and Voloya (translator and driver) were waiting for us. We were driven to the Korvet hotel. We have a very nice, big room. It is kind of sectioned off into three rooms and a bathroom. There is a refrigerator too. It is close to the "big mall" and a large outdoor market with people selling home grown fruits and vegetables as well as chickens and eggs. Tomorrow we will go see Jill at 9:30 am then go to the grocery store and outdoor market.