A Trip to Suzdal

I had that feeling again today - of not knowing how to get to where we wanted to go; of not knowing if where we wanted to go was where we wanted to be; and of not knowing how to communicate any of this to the lady behind the ticket window.

We wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of Moscow for awhile and Suzdal seemed a perfect place.

To train or to bus, that was the question. We chose to train and that was the wrong decision. After battling the pushy Russians who refuse to form queues at any window, we made it to the front of the ticket window. John stood to the left and I stood in front of the small plexi-glass opening with my left hip jutting to the right and a arm pushed to the side to block any would-be queue-cutters. "Let them just try to muscle in on us here."

But, for all our waiting to get there, we were at the wrong window. We needed "express". Who knew? With no windows marked as "express" it was anyones guess as to where the ladies small wave to the right meant.

People tend to do that here. Point witha 4-dfingered turn of the wrist held at waist level. The smaller the motion, the more perfected it is. John and I are now constantly pointing at landmarks trying to achieve the most impercievable wrist flick.

So, off to another window at the train station. Eventually, through sign-language, phrase book thumbing, pointnig and passing of our guide book through teh window, we found that the only 3 trains to Vladimir were either gone or hours away/

Plan B - the bus. Knowing which bus station to be at would take years of research (Moscow has 9 trains stations around the city. It also have 5 domestic airports. But that's another story. Luckily the Lonely Planet spelled it out for us. Off we went, through the train station, down the metro tunnel - opps the wrong way, turn around - and to the last stop of the blue metro line to another ticket window.

This window said "INFORMATION" in bold red letters in English. Of course no one actually spoke english. So there we were again with the pen. paper, point pass, pantomine. And, we had our tickets.

We killed time waiting for the bus at the market getting lunch supplies and trying to get Russian bread at the bakery. You pay first at a kiosk and then take your receipt to the bread window and receive the loaf. Russian brown bread is fabulous. I helped an old lady tuck in her babuska and button her enormous coat. Everything she owned seemed to be underneath it. She said thankyou and stated spewing out Russian and it was all I could do to get my phrase book out fast enough to tell her I didn't understand a word she was saying.

Anyway, we finally got on the bus for the our first long bus ride. And, may I add...our last.