As mentioned, the hall in Moscow turned
out to be a wonderful place to play after all the tripping and
slipping on the stairs. St Petersburg also had a magnificent concert
hall, although I might not have been in the best spot on the stage to
appreciate the acoustics. The earplugs were pushed in so far one of
them didn't come out until I sneezed the next morning, if you know
what I mean.
As with almost every tour, the public
transit infrastructure in Russia made what we have back home look
pretty shabby. I imagine if more Americans traveled overseas they
might approve increased funding for transportation if only to avoid
shame and embarrassment.
However, the St Petersburg airport
needs works, and lots of it. One of my colleagues who dropped off
his partner earlier in the day warned of a possible cluster-f#ck when
our large group arrived. Sure enough, as our buses pulled up the
line was already out the door, although that line turned out only to
be a sort of preliminary line - a line to get in line. The real
bottleneck occurred at passport control. If you imagine the human
digestive tract, with however many yards of intestine crammed into
the abdominal cavity, you will get an idea of how that line snaked
around the all-too-small room. At every bend, a few enterprising,
boorish, or clueless people took the opportunity to jump a loop or
two ahead. Like any orchestra, we have a deep well of bitchiness and
personal outrage to draw upon, but no appeal proved effective at
getting the cutters to move back to their place. By my watch, it
took about four hours of standing in line to make it through passport
control and onto my flight.
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