End of Act I

Returning to Canada after a year in Russia and a week in England was, to say the least, anti-climatic. The past year that I spent in Russia was one of the most eventful and interesting years I've ever had and Canada just feels, well, boring. It's like I never left.

This fact could be attributed to being in Ottawa, the city that fun forgot. If I had returned to the west coast things would have been much different but, as it stands, my family lives in Ottawa thus I am in Ottawa.

My week touring around England may have helped to buffer some of the reverse-culture shock, as everyone there speaks English, has the same culture as my home and living standards are high, although driving on the left remains confusing. Also, customer service in England is only a few shades brighter than customer service in Russia, and I have yet to experience exceptional Canadian customer service (to be fair, the best customer service in the world is south of the Mason-Dixie Line in states such as South Carolina and Georgia).

One interesting thing about my visit to London stands out in my mind: meeting up with Quagmire!

A few days before I set out for the UK Quagmire emailed me and said he was passing through London on his way to a new destination. I told I was also passing through London at the same time! We arranged to meet at the stone lions at Trafalgar Square at 1 pm and on the specified day we met up.

The last I had seen of Quagmire was after he was canned in Mytischi for missing classes. Wonderpants, Mr. Irish and I had chipped in some cash to give Quagmire as he didn't have enough for a flight home and Language Link was cancelling his visa. He took a train to Kiev, Ukraine, and for a week or so stayed in touch but then vanished. That was in March. Now, in September, in London, England, Quagmire and I were sitting at a British pub eating steak and ale pies and drinking British Imperial pints of bitter.

Quagmire had been arrested in Ukraine for teaching illegally at a language school in L'viv and had spent some time in a Ukrainian prison, and then an immigration detention centre and then was finally booted out of the country. Naturally the police kept his laptop, cell phone and cash for themselves. He's now found a new job in Sri Lanka and while he was stopping in London on his way east I was stopping in London on my way west.

London is filled with tour companies; it is the fourth most-touristed city in the world, so Quagmire and I bought tickets for a hop-on/hop-off bus tour called "The Big Bus Company". They have open-top double-decker buses and follow a bus route which snakes through Westminster and London, stopping at every interesting site. The ticket is good for 24 hours so anybody can hop and off and catch another bus. They come by every 10 minutes.


In January Quagmire and I had conducted a beer tour of Moscow. It started when we got stinking drunk at a cafe in GUM (possibly the only idiots on the planet to get drunk in GUM) and in 12 hours saw us visit over 10 different bars and cafes and clubs. For old-times' sake, armed with our Big Bus tickets, we did it again in London. Piccadilly Circus! Drink! Soho! Drink! Whitehall! Drink! Big Ben! Drink! The Tower of London! Drink! Buckingham Palace! Drink!




At 9:30 the following morning I made my way to Heathrow and caught a flight back to Toronto and then a connecting flight to Ottawa, where it has been nice to see my family but completely lacking in anything resembling excitement, and thus the anti-climax of an epic year.

The good news, for me at least, is that I decided to return to Moscow but this time as a student of Russian. Katya and I paid for the first semester of courses and my Letter of Invitation is being processed in Moscow right now. In four weeks I'll fly back and Katya and I will rent a flat on the (cheaper) outskirts of the city, so the wonderful year I just experienced has, after all, a sequel!

Quagmire enjoys a pint of British ale

Russia to Sweden to England

I flew out of Moscow on Saturday afternoon and touched down in Stockholm two hours later in what turned out to be an anti-climactic departure. With all my business with Language Link tied up including receiving my final pay-out and flight reimbursement (which all went rather smoothly), I said my goodbyes to dear friends and colleagues and boarded a Scandinavian Airlines Airbus at Sheremyetova International.

Stockholm was not as exciting as I was expecting. This centre of Scandinavian culture and history, as well as the capital of one of Europe's most prosperous and advanced countries, was surprisingly small. I never was able to get an exact population figure but it couldn't have been larger than 200,000 people. I'm too lazy to look it up.

I only had 18 hours in Sweden before my connecting to flight to London so I took the fast airport express train from Arlanda International to the city centre and walked around. By following a couple of the canals that snake through the city I was able to see a few interesting sights, such as the pictures below, but unfortunately I couldn't find my way to the Royal Palace where the King of Sweden lives.



From Stockholm I continued on my journey to London, England where I landed around 10 pm local time and my cousin and her husband, The Roberts', were waiting for me.

There was an interesting moment at the British Immigration desk at Heathrow when I was nearly denied entry to the United Kingdom. All non-EU passport holders have to fill out an immigration card and one of the questions on this card is "The address, including postal code and telephone number, of where you will be staying during your visit." I had no address and no telephone number for The Roberts', so I simply jotted down "Daventry". The woman at passport control didn't like this.
"Why don't you know where you're staying?" She asked me in a very accusing tone.
I shrugged.
"Let me see proof of a flight out of England." She demanded.
I handed over my e-ticket voucher for my flight to Canada.
"I need an actual ticket!" She barked.
"This is all I have." I replied and, for some reason "Look, I have a Union Jack and a crown on my passport, and it is issued in the Queen's name!"
She looked at me for a long time in uncomfortable silence while I stood there with an idiotic smile, and then she sighed and stamped my passport.
"Ok. Don't do it again." She advised me as I walked through the turnstile. I was in England!

I've been relaxing for a few days at my cousin's house in the rural English town of Daventry and spent yesterday picking blackberries in the rain, driving on the left side of the road (driving standard with the gear shift on my left was a strange experience but I quickly mastered it; the most difficult part I found was negotiating the ridiculously narrow British roads) and drinking true Imperial pints of bitter ale at true British pubs.

This is a ROAD, not a footpath!

I'm here for a few days and then I'm off to tour around London on my own and then flying home to Canada.

And then in October I'm returning to Moscow for more adventures.