The weather-beaten ride into clouds of unknowing, darkness, and fear: Part I of Matt’s account of the first days in Russia.

(Events of Sept. 2-3, 2006)

Most of you last saw us physically sometime around 10 pm on Friday, Sept. 1. You probably thought that we would be wanting to hurry off to bed to rest for our big journey the next day, but you would be wrong—well, sort of. One of us (I’ll let you guess which one) really wanted to go to sleep as early as possible that night; the other thought that a good night’s rest was overstated as a prerequisite to safe and pleasant travel. End result: we went to bed at 2:00 am and got up at 4:00 am to get to Ontario airport (thank you, Liam!). What better way to begin a 20+ hour flight than with two hours of sleep?

Made it to our Ontario flight with at least seven minutes to spare—no problem. We had flown this leg about eleventy-billion times, so we cruised into DFW airport having rested a little bit and plenty ready for the real “start” of the journey. We were met at DFW by Mom and Dad Conley and, as a surprise (or the result of deliberate subterfuge) also Marci and Melinda (Kinzie’s twin sisters). We had good times using our four hours of layover in Dallas to eat a last American meal at Bennigans (monte cristo’s are GREAT for pre-flight food) and to completely repack our four 50 lb. suitcases. There’s no living like having your most private possessions strewn all over the in-row airport benches as onlookers stroll by. We could have had a sale and made some money, I think. In the end, because British Airways only allowed one “notebook-sized” bag per traveler as carry-on baggage, we had to make some fast and tough decisions (which Kinzie, you know, is very good at making). Makinzie really had the worst of it, having packed enough clothes and shoes to begin a little “magazine proezhda” (clothing store) in Moscow when we came, but I also had to sacrifice a few pairs of underwear in order to bring a full-size jar of peanut butter, which of course I was terrified to do without.

After a tearful goodbye, we found our gate and had time to snag a last Ben&Jerry’s coffee drink before we boarded the plane and waited with anticipation for the engines to take us away from America. The night before, Liam Vega, Tavo’s son, had been excited that Makinzie and I were going to get to fly a “rocket ship” to Russia. I tell you, as I sat watching the landmarks of Dallas growing smaller and smaller, I really did feel like I was leaving familiar earth.

***

I have decided that I like London and I like British Airways: London, because it’s green and noisy and somewhat mysterious and proper and just how I imagined it ought to be; British Airways because they give passengers blue dress socks to wear and a little toothbrush kit that—ironically—one can’t really take off the plane if one is continuing on another flight. They also have personal TV screens and a nice selection of classical audio channels, as well as noisy British rock music. We had no problems at all with our nine-hour flight from DFW to London; we slept pretty well and I even was able to successfully put off studying Sociolinguistics by watching a wonderful documentary on the world’s deepest caves and mines (did you know that TauTona in South Africa goes about 3.6 km below the earth’s surface? If any of you are planning a trip I want to come too.) The “brits” staffing this flight weren’t particularly warm, and I had quite enough of the orange juice man who, for some reason, brought a tray around at during the early hours of the morning, but my opinion of the BA staff would change later (ooh, foreshadowing—exciting!). The bus drive from Gatwick to Heathrow turned out to be painless, and in fact, I was enchanted the entire time by the South London scenery. For an English major who has never seen England, this was a memorable hour. I queried Makinzie about the possibility of relocating our mission to London—perhaps an internet-class in Russia facilitated through England—but she pointed out the important reminder that there might be really cheap video games in Russia, and I was willing to go forward.

In Heathrow airport we had a more significant reminder of purpose. Navigating through the various elevators and stairs of Heathrow, we happened to meet a young man named Charlie Cahill, who had been on our flight from DFW and who was heading to Germany to study the language. After speaking with Charlie for awhile, we found out that he was a believer from Oklahama and that he was hoping to use his time in Germany to build relationships and strengthen his faith. We had a good prayer time together in a little corner of the airport and found a reluctant British gentleman to snap a picture of us all (which should show up alongside this text). It was heartening to find another pilgrim along the way, and we hope that Charlie is doing well in his first days of language study. (He didn’t know where he was going to sleep that night when he arrived in Germany!).

We wearily arrived at the terminal in plenty of time for our next flight, which had been delayed because of problems with the crew finding a bus to the airport (c’mon! A flight crew can’t drive their own bus!), and we steeled ourselves to stay awake for the flight so as to be able to sleep soundly once we arrived in Russia. Ah!—The naivety of youth! I was helped in my resolution by reading Sociolinguistics so as to actually know what to talk about on my first day of class on Monday; Makinzie was helped by “Nacho Libre”, which was the only in-flight movie for the four-hour Moscow leg. No blue socks and no personal TVs this time! In fact, as we chatted with a (much friendlier) flight attendant—Maria, who we won’t soon forget—during this leg, we found out that the Moscow flight is one of the more “primitive” that British Airways flies: unlike other cities, Moscow will not allow British Airways crew to stay overnight in the city, and so they have to fly back home immediately after the plane is re-fueled! I felt like we were being dropped off on a remote island (the sound of the plane engines dying away in the distance as we cry, “wait! wait!”).

Now, if any of you last Sunday or Monday were wondering “Why haven’t Matt and Makinzie called?” or “Why haven’t they updated their blog?”—here is the reason why (and the best part of the story so far).

Sunday evening, about 7 pm Moscow time: The flight into Moscow is preparing to commence landing. Nearing the arrival time and destination, the captain of the aircraft announces that we are beginning our final descent (a scary phrase, no?) into Moscow Domededovo airport, adding that there is stormy weather and that everyone should be in their seats and buckled in. Maria, our new flight attendant friend, sits in the jumpseat facing us (we’re on an exit aisle) and stows her things in preparation for landing. A light conversation begins, in which we inform Maria that we’re coming to Moscow for the first time, and in which she informs us of the “no stay over” policy of Moscow as detailed above. Suddenly, the plane rocks to the side a little bit. I notice Maria glance at the other side of the aircraft, where another flight attendant, also seated, has looked over towards Maria with an expression that makes me feel uncomfortable. I look out the window of the plane and am a little worried because we’re heading downward and I can’t see the ground. No problem. They’ve done this many times before. No worries. The conversation starts up again. Maria explains that she likes to fly to Switzerland the most, and that she’s not really fond of the Moscow flight because she gets in late. We hear a normal plane sound, and Maria says (with a BBC British accent), “That will be the undercarriage.” The landing gear has been released, and Maria looks a little relieved. She explains that she was worried before that we wouldn’t be able to land, but now that the landing gear is out we should be down in a minute or two. So, I realize, she is willing to sit here and talk about Switzerland in order to distract me from recognizing the sure doom of the aircraft. I look out the side of the window and am suddenly terrified. The sky is pitch black and the clouds so thick that I cannot even see the light on the edge of the wing some tens of feet away—the ground below us is nowhere in sight. We are racing noticeably downward, and my heartrate accelerates to about the same speed as the plane. I ask Maria if most plane crashes are survivable. No actually I didn’t—this was just a good way to keep up the continuity of the drama with a touch of humorous understatement.

But I do ask Maria if this is the worst storm she’s ever been in, and while I’m asking, we hear the landing gear go BACK UP! I catch another glance from Maria to the other flight attendant, and this time she looks even more worried. I immediately keen that Maria knows we are facing certain death. Maria says that she’s worried we’ll have to be diverted to another airport, which is bad for her because she will be delayed even further from returning home and she has forgotten to feed her cat in London. Not to be fooled, I recognize this statement as confirmation that the plane is about to burrow into the ground at 700 miles per hour. The captain comes on the intercom and says (basically), “There’s a really bad storm right now at Domedodovo airport, and we have decided not to risk your lives by trying to land in a tornado. We’re diverting from Domedodovo to the other airport in Moscow. Sorry I couldn’t talk before, but we narrowly avoided smashing the plane into thousands of tiny bits and I had to concentrate.” I am not consoled so easily. However, as we make the extra trip to Sheremetyevo airport, I notice the sky becoming gradually clearer. By the time the landing gear comes out again, I can actually see a lighted city below the aircraft, and I am much more at ease. Maria assures us that the airline will arrange for our travel to the other airport, and we in turn assure her that her cat will be OK. Makinzie, by the way, has been disappointingly unphased by any of the preceding drama of death and aircraft destruction: she is in “go mode” to find our ride and get “home.”

An interesting story, that of our ride “home.” Whenever one plans to fly into an airport on the extreme southern side of a metropolis and then ends up flying into an airport on the extreme northern side of that same metropolis, great problems arise. Planes can fly this distance in minutes. Apparently, it takes a ground vehicle significantly more time to make the same journey. I’ll save the story of the airport waiting for the next time we meet, but you should know that it was filled with attempts to force connections between us and random people holding up signs in the new airport (no, “H” was not waiting for us, nor was “McKinsey and Company” or “University”) as well as a trip to a scary and near-deserted bar on the seedy fourth floor of the airport in search of an internet connection. Makinzie apparently is right in EVERY tense situation, for her advice to wait for our ride to make it from one airport to the other (countered by my suggestion to attempt to call her mom so that she could look up our number for our contact in Russia which we didn’t have) was ultimately right. Dr. Broersma, provost of RACU where I would be teaching in just a few hours, picked us up sometime around midnight Moscow time and we walked—or stumbled, rather—into our new “home” at about 1 am.

As for what happened next, you’ll just have to wait for the next episode . . .
Unless all of this text absolutely bored you, in which case you may not ever be reading my posts anymore . . .