A writer, reloaded

My trip to Moscow, a la Youtube.

Watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJkDCfl4S8

11:20 AM MSK – Right now a car service is en route to my digs in Moscow. With large heapings of luck I’ll be in the United States by 8:30 EST.

A full update will follow in the next few days.

Made it to Moscow after a long flight that Aeroflot rescheduled–another way of saying it left late without compromising their on-time statistics. Spent most of the day sleeping and relaxing. Tonight I’m working from a dialup modem, so updates will be sparse.

But all is good.

It’s 11PM ( 23:08 ) MSK Time, and I’m off to bed.

At JFK waiting for the plane so I dropped a few ducats in the duty free shop. Meet my new son, Jack. He’s 3 liters. Excuse me for a moment. My son is on a critical mission to slim down and needs my support…

. . . till Moscow

Picked up my visa this morning in Philadelphia. Though I’ll return much earlier, according to the papers, I can legally remain in Russia until the 20th of January, 2008. Basically this document is glued to a page in the passport–fastened so tightly it can never be removed. It allows the bearer one entrance into Russia within the specified period. The holographic seal features the Kremlin and is rather sharp looking. Filed somewhere at the Russian embassy in New York and the Ministry of International Affairs in Moscow are copies of my visa application, as well as several passport sized photos.

Ah, paper trails.

I should explain the post title, Mockba. That’s the word Moscow in Cyrillic.