What A Pain In The Ass!

Getting there is supposedly half the fun...

Dear Blogette,

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm now in Moscow. Arriving here was not as easy as 1-2-3. No "just get on a plane and voila! you're there."

After fleeing Austria, I stayed with wonderful friends in Paderborn. During that time, I was offered my job here in Moscow and the arrangements began. To go to Russia, you cannot just buy tickets and go, no, there is a complicated and lengthy as well as costly procedure that has to be followed whether you're planning to visit just a few days as a tourist or to transact some business or, as I am, staying a longer time to live and work here.

The first step is the "invitation." If you're a tourist, you seek one of these through a travel agent or visa agency. In my case, it was obtained from the appropriate government body by my employer and sent to me in Paderborn. Once I had this, I needed to find out what to do next. Although I have both an American and a German passbort by quirk of birth and fate, I was being hired here as an American and so the somewhat more relaxed methodology applying to EU nationals wasn't applicable.

After nosing around the internet and getting utterly confused thanks to the various different sources and conflicting information out there about what to do next, I spent a few days just trying to figure out whether, as a U.S. citizen, I would be able to apply from Germany for my visa. And a few more trying to track down whether I actually did need a statement showing my HIV-negative status as intimated on the Russian embassy's website. Since I wasn't living in Berlin, I needed to deal with the Russian consulate in Bonn, which added a few new twists to the melange thanks to differing and more limited operating hours, its relatively inconvenient distance from Paderborn and such. After being told three different versions of what I needed to do by Consulate personnel, it became clear quite quickly that like in many bureaucracies, often the brain is as unaware of what the hands are doing as it is of what the feet are up to.

The solution was to find a visa prcourement agency. Enlisting the trusty www again, i found one in Berlin and proceeded to waste several days in communicating with them only to have them tell me that because it was a work permit visa I was seeking, they could not help me since, according to them, only the Embassy or Consulates could issue those. Stymied but not defeated, I scoured those "internets" some more and found two more agencies in Bonn itself or its immediate surroundings. After more e-mails flew back and forth, one turned out to be very competent and off I sent the necessary documentation along with a goodly wad of cash for them to be able to get the visa in "express" mode so that I could finally get to Moscow to start work. After all, money was tight and the stipend from my gracious sister was not bottomless and still had to pay for transportation and moving costs and was also supposed to see me through the first few weeks on the job until that epic first paycheck.

Three days later, the passport with visa came back by courier and I trotted off to the train station to buy a ticket. True, the train was slower, but with the volume of stuff I was transporting, it was also cheaper by far than flying (note to U.S. readers: excess baggage is charged at premium rates in the rest of the world, not for a reasonable fee as in the U.S.). Besides, trains are more comfy and adventurous and you get to see where you are going.

Having read in several guides that the train traversed Belarus, the Russian satellite country ruled by its despotic dictator, "President"  Lukashenko, I also found out I would need a transit visa for the ride across its "sovereign soil," even though various sources contradicted themselves on whether that was still true and/or how much it would cost, how long it would take to get, etc.  I called the Belarus embassy in Berlin and received one answer, then I called the visa agency and received another. Finally I called a third agency and received a third answer. The bottom line, it was felt in rare near-consensus, would be for me to use my EU (German) passport to traverse good old Belarus. They would issue a transit-visum at Brest at the border to Poland for 65 Euros. Convenient!

Once ensconced on the comfortable train, off I rattled towards Mother Russia. The ride through Germany and Poland went through mostly (boring) pleasingly green landscapes which I saw in glimpses and snatches as failed air conditioning made keeping the blinds down to keep the searing sunlight out of my (luckily) single compartment and roasting me more than necessary. (Some already know how well-seasoned, mouth-wateringly delicious and downright plump I truly am; indeed, many may have even called me "Mrs. Butterworth" in my hey-day... Confused? Click here to find out more!)

After tearing through several of the books I had brought which were supposed to last me through my first few weeks in Moscow due to the absolutely riveting train ride, we arrived in Belarus at the main station in Brest, the very same town once made famous because of the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which took Russia out of World War I in 1918. A friendly Belarus border guard came into our car and went door to door after having picked up our passports from the conductor.

Surveying my German passport with its many stamps and visas from all over the world in it (and its rather dilapidated appearance), he barked a few words which were meaningless to me and strode off. Shortly thereafter our conductress appeared and said that I would have to exit the train because I did not have a transit visum for the great country of Belarus. When the guard came back, I told him via the now translating (and visibly trepidated) conductress that his embassy had said I could get a visa at the border, to which he replied, "Nyet." And so I got booted off the train in Brest, luggage and all. Oddly, he had summoned a chain gang of lesser uniformed monkeys to help me with my bags, and so we toddled off across the dirt path towards a curtained minibus of indeterminate vintage. Scenes of dark torture cells and prisons were hard to keep out of my mind, but I did the best I could.

The bus drove through Brest, which under other circumstances might have been quite nice to visit and tour. It stopped in front of a mighty looking government edifice where I was bade to alight and again the little gang took my luggage inside for me. There I was bid sit on a wooden chair and wait, most of this conveyed through mime-action.

After three hours in the less than commodious chair, the same boss soldier reappeared from behind a dingy curtain and beckoned me to follow. Again the little troupe of soldiers appeared to take charge of my luggage, and again we boarded the curtained, creaky minibus and rumbled off toward the station. Once there, I was shown to platform 1, where a cutting-edge regional train fitted with more comfy, oh-so-splintery wooden seating awaited me to Poland awaited me (see representative image at right). And thus I was whisked at lightning speeds back to the thriving metropolis of Terespol, which abuts the internationally-significant border between those mighty superpowers, Poland and Belarus.

The Polish border guards were lovely and immediately helped with my baggage (I was getting spoiled at this point) and when I asked about a taxi, the lead guard switched to German and communication in one of my two perfectly fluent tongues was established. He helped me find an English-speaking cab driver (!) and thus I met Grigor, who took me under his wing (for a price, naturally as I found out the next evening...) 

I spent the evening in a nice hotel which even had a restaurant and I was able to eat Pierogis in Poland, one of the things on my bucket list of lifetime goals. They were delicious and very filling. I could live on them very happily and easily.

Next morning at the crack of dawn Grigor arrived to take me to Biala Podlaska, the district town about 40 Kilometers away, where there is a Belarus consulate. First we went to a travel agency where I needed to buy a health insurance policy to ensure that I was covered while traversing the superpower's sovereign soil so as to ensure that I would not become a burden to their ever so progressive and all-inclusive health care system, should I fall deathly ill during the long and arduous eight-hour train trip across the land of dreams and enchantment. After this purchase was made for a total of $2, it was off to the consulate to wait in line for about four hours in the blistering sun. The consulate makes everyone wait on the street, and one person is admitted at a time into the toilet-cublicle sized office, a system well worth emulating as it makes for fun like line-jumping, bribes to get "cuts" and other entertainment such as knife fights and cursing contests in various Slavic languages.

Once I finally ascended to thre throne room, I turned in my papers with my passport photo. A woman in late-model cat eye glasses scanned the paperwork, gestured for me to sign here, there and everywhere, and then took the paperwork to a hidden space for someone to sign, presumably the Belarusian grand poobah. She then returned and told me without batting an eyelash, "$320 please," which caused me to go off like a volcano. I could not believe that Lukashenko the Magnificent and his local grand poobah would try to fleece me out of more than my train ticket and half the Russian work permit had cost for 8 hours on his polluted, evil soil! So I told cat woman my astonished sentiments in flowery language that would possibly have made some people blush. She disappeared again and came back and said, "$160, please." I flatly refused and said that this was attempted theft and that the only reason I was there was because their own embassy in Berlin had guaranteed me I could traverse their glorious nation for 65 Euros using my German passport. She went away again, and this time the grand poobah himself emerged from behind the curtain into full technicolor view. After stuttering on "I is so sorry" for several tension-filled minutes, he told me that since my Russian work permit and visa was in the U.S. passport, I could not use the German one and the price "this week" for Americans wa$320, but he would give me a children's visa and thus only charge me $120. When I explained that I no longer owned $120 thanks to their little racket, the answer was repeated shoulder shrugging and muttering behind the bullet-proof glass. When i asked what they expected me to do, Old Cat-Eye abruptly spoke fleuntly and said, "You must go to Warsaw and fly." Wonderful...

Grigor said I should not worry, he would take me somewhere where they had "internets" and we wound up at his sister's house, who was charming, spoke lovely English and hosted me all afternoon while I established communication with my dear brother in Mary-Land. He immediately called and agreed to help me get to Moscow by buying a plane ticket for the next day, as it was too late to go thanks to the time-wasting tactics of Belarus, as well as a hotel room in Warsaw, as I was now close to totally broke, would still need to get to Warsaw with and pay Grigor, too. I had a total of 100 Euros left, which I changed into Polish Zlotys and Robert prepaid the hotel and the airline ticket.

Grigor and I set off to Warsaw and arrived there a few hours later, where I found out that the Zlotys I had would not cover the taxi fare (naturally), but I needn't worry, Grigor would gladly accept what have you in payment. What have you turned out to be a pair of gold cufflinks left to me by my grandfather and a netbook given me by my sister Marcia which was less than a year old, so Grigor was very good at making sure he got paid very well, but I could not in any way complain as without him I would have been stuck in Terespol forever, which seemed like a cruel fate...

The hotel was an old Soviet-era Interhotel at the Warsaw airport. It had been purchased by a chain and extended and the cheaper rooms were those in the unrenovated tract, which made for one of those charming retro experiences. The good news was they had cable with several channels in English and German and so I was happy as a clam...

Next morning there was a decent breakfast included and off I went to the airport around the corner. In the meantime my brother contacted me to say he had sent me some cash via Western Union and that I should go to one of their outlets and show my passport and I would be back in the chips. 

At the airport, I immediately went to the counter for Aero Svit, the national carrier of the Ukraine, on which I was booked. At the check in they determined my luggage was 37 kilograms overweight (try 75 pounds!) , but the nice counter lady said i should go upstairs and just pay for 15, which should cost about 100 Euro. So I went to the Western Union counter in the same area and showed my passport and was told that without a transaction number, there was nothing they could do. At this point I was ready to have a conniption fit and be tied and bundled, all at the same time. After much begging and wheedling and cajoling, the airport woman at Aero Svit finally decided that she would give me my boarding passes anyway, and thus nothing was ever paid for the overweight bags, which somehow felt like just revenge, even if the Ukraine is a dictatorship all its own with nothing to do with evil Lukashenkoland, a.k.a. Belarus.

Aero Svit took me svitly to Kiev's Borispol International airport, which reminded me quite a lot of the huge facility known as Hosea Kutako International in Windhoek, Namibia in both size and atmosphere, but I shouldn't joke because they had free Wifi, which made the five hour layover pass by in the (slow) blink of a turtle's eye.

Arriving in Moscow, I discovered that apparently I had left  my glasses on the plane (which had taken off again nearly immediately) and was now close to blind. I got to the front of the customs line and was told I would have to go back and fill out an arrivals form (not mentioned on the plane at all, which struck me as bizarre), which now seemed an insurmountable take, but with the help of a lovely young customs guard, I was able to overcome this final hurdle. Moscow, at last!

NEXT TIME: Mysterious Moscow

 

 

Wow, it's been a long time!

Dearest Bloggette!

I apologize most humbly and sincerely for neglecting you. I note with dismay that the last time I even visited you, let alone shared anything with you, was while I was living in the Czech Republic again... eons ago! Again, my sincerest apologies for such wanton neglect.

And let's catch you up on what has transpired since those better-forgotten days in Brno...

Brno, in the clutches of the evil and degenerate Lufthansa Global Domination empire, was a fiasco. I met some nice people there, true, but generally working there turned out to be worse than working for the evil German Labor Camp (GLC) division of aforementioned carrier in South Africa. At least in South Africa the administration was honest and while not always the most intelligent, when they made mistakes they were honest, not blatant attempts at rip-off motivated by immeasurable stupidity in the upper echelons of the local management. Suffice it to say that after having to pay back amounts of cash based on a mistake by dumb Czech management and accountants even though I apparently could not be held liable, and having to put up with shift leaders who borrowed money never to repay it and other shift leaders who were simply unadulterated  pure evil, it was time to move on.

Alas, Dowager Baroness Elizabeth I. passed away on New Year's Eve 2011, while I was still in Brno, which first caused more consternation with aforementioned dunderheads at the Labor Camp (they had apparently never heard of compassionate leave for when one's mother dies) and subsequently also provided me with amodest inheritance.

Sadly, I decided that the inheritance would be best appied to helping me escape the misery that was Lufthansa and all of its negative attributes. Rather rashly, I chose to make a foray back into hospitality, along the lines of "the grass is always greener" and forgetting the hard work and endless hours involved. Reassuring myself that since I would be the boss this time, things would be different and I would not be as exhausted, drained and sucked dry as I had been while slaving for others in the past I forged ahead with zeal.

The turns and twists of the human mind truly can be amazing. How quickly we forget unpleasantness, downright lies, broken promises and affronts to one's dignity. How easily we seem to recall only the good of something without remembering in detail or completely displacing all those evils and pettinesses bestowed upon one's soul by unscrupulous and perfidious previous employers and faceless corporations interested solely in bottom-line avarice.

And so it was. The carrot dangling on my personal stick was independence, the chance to prove to myself that I was a clever and decent entrepreneur. As I was not sure I wanted to begin what I envisaged as a global empire of Baronial hostelries in Germany, I looked to Austria. Object 1 was a small hotel in a forgotten corner of Austria's upper Northwest. The town had only the one hotel, it was in passable condition with the apparent potential for growth, alocal brewery interested in investing large sums in order to have a showcase hostelry at its disposal, immediate proximity to the Czech border which meant lower prices for just about everything within a stone's throw, and a motivated owner seeking to find a replacement for the current unreliable tenant who repeatedly threatened to shut the place down, lest a replacement be immediately forthcoming.

My dearest high school friend, Lady Felicity of the Baronial order of the Bravehearted, accompanied me on my fact finding missions. We sussed the place out, asked all the right questions and received (by and large) all the right answers. I did my due diligence diligently and the entire project looked to be a green-lighted good thing. With my modest inheritance (all that was left of the once vast Baronial estates and holdings due to indiscretions, idiotic investments and poor planning by predecessors who shall remain nameless, as good taste would have it) wending its way through the maze of international banking houses, I descended upon the arranged meeting place for the ceremonial reading of the proposed contract, only to find several untoward and unpleasant surprises awaiting me.

The locale for our meeting was changed while I was en route - a very bad sign - with notification made by SMS on my cell phone - Clue 1 that something was amiss. Then my proposed advisor and accountant sent an SMS to say he would prefer to meet at the same time as the scheduled contract reading and at the same site, which was the place of business of the lessor - Clue 2. And upon my arrival at said place of business, I was ushered in to a conference table at which there was an unknown face, a surly older woman, the mother of the lessor - Clue 3 that something was not only amiss but downright foul.

We proceeded to read the contract aloud, as is customary, and not one of the promised changes and improvements was included. This made not only the hair on my neck stand erect but also caused the eyebrows of our mutual go-between and real estate agent to lapse into paralytic arches of total dismay and surprise. Every time he reached a passage where something was missing or had been changed to the worse, he would shoot a look at the young lessor, who would make urging eyes at him, as if to say, "Go ahead, it's alright." And a second inquisitive glance from the realtor would then result in a very deep-throated rumbling comment in perfect local dialect along the lines of, "That's right, we aren't paying for anything" by Big Mama, who apparently was busy protecting her sonny boy from evil me.

When we got to the end of the contract, all eyes turned upon yours truly. in the interest of good taste, decorum and mild manners, I cleared my throat carefully and inconspicuously and said, with my sweetest, most benign voice,

"I'm afraid this is not what we had previously agreed to. I cannot, in good conscience, be a party to any such contract and therefore must withdraw. Should you change your minds and wish to continue in the vein previously discussed and agreed upon, bearing in mind that under Austrian law a verbal agreement is binding, please do not hesitate to contact me. You have my contact details. I must bid you farewell."

Big Mama, bowled over either by my eloquence or the fact that unlike her weaselly son I was not impressed by her girth or gruffness, now rumbled noises telling me they had had another offer and that if I did not act, they might be forced to accept it.

"Madam, you are free to accept any offer. I shall not be a party to an agreement which is wholly slanted against me and would be closer to a death warrant than a business deal. Should the other party be willing to sign such a document, then Godspeed to you all."

With that I doffed my non-existent hat and strode through the door. I got in my lovely Renault Scenic (which I sorely miss here in Russia) and drove back to Lady Felicity's country estate, where I told them the sad tale. After being soothed with pots of delicious tea and a lovely repast, I set about attempting to find a replacement for the soured deal, as disappointed and shocked as I was.

After a few false starts, a second property emerged in due time. It was a mountain inn in Tyrol. It was smaller than the first object (only 9 guest rooms as opposed to 26), in a remote location (as opposed to a prime spot on a town square, even if in a less-than-touristy spot in Austria) and had a motivated lessor (a German couple) seeking to give up or transfer their lease due to (supposed) ill-health.

Negotiations stretched out over several months. Lady Felicity's husband Tony cautioned me that Tyrol had a checkered history of poor snowfall (one of the inn's selling points was its immediate prximity to a ski slope and lift). lady Felicity herself said that Tyroleans were cagey beings and to be enjoyed with extreme caution, but none of these auguries seemed serious enough to abandon the project. Additionally, my sister, Lady Marcia of Bruckless, had indicated that due to the recent demise of her husband, she sought a new task in life and would like to invest and become active in the project. Hear, hear!

And so I proceeded. Again, I did my due diligence diligently. I contacted local officials in the village, made inquires as best I could about the character of the current tenants and the owner, researched local law and what grants and enticements might be available for me locally. Finally, I visited the property with Lady Marcia. We were bowled over by its beauty and the friendliness of those involved.

Shortly thereafter, not heeding the caveats of others, papers were signed and I was the proud owner of my own business and operator of a bona fide Tyrolean mountain inn.  As the takeover was in the middle of the summer season, I brought with me a trusted friend freed from the bondage of slave labor in Brno, and we went about the take-over.

It became rapidly apparent that the current tenants were not forthright, that a state of war had existed between them and the owner-lessor, and that the path ahead would be laden with obstacles, barriers and hindrances. The property was filthy, no work having been done by the exhausted tenants for several weeks as they had scrambled to find alternative employment in Germany. There was a bitter battle between the owner and the tenants over numerous improvements made which the owner claimed he had paid for and that therefore could not be purchased from the tenants, as is customary...

Perhaps at this point I may be allowed to promise a continuation, as the next 8 months turned out to be more hellish and outrageous than even the two years' endured at the hands of the German Labor Camp division of Lufthansa.

Suffice it to say that in April 2012, both Lady Marcia and I called our inn adventure quits, fleeing at nightfall much like those superb singers, the Family von Trapp of Sound of Music fame had done some 60-odd years before when escaping the Nazis.

After recuperating and resting Germany with some of my best friends in Paderborn, from whence I had started out on the GLC Luftahnsa misadventure in 2009, I was finally able to return to teaching English to hapless foreigners once more, this time in a whole new world - Moscow, capital of the Russian Federation.

More to come

Better flying for Everyone: What airlines should do...

Hello, sweet Bloggamathingy...

Today I have once again been pondering the thought of making flying a better experience for everyone.

You will of course remember my previous submission here on creating 'family sections' aboard intercontinental and long-haul flights, along with my award-winning designs for baby crates (allowing the little ones to be put into the cargo holds of aircraft, thus ensuring a wonderful trip for the rest of us). What's that? You don't remember? Ah, well, here's a link so you can go back and refresh your obviously faltering memory (and you may want to go see a doctor right away to make sure you are not suffering from some debilitating brain disorder, just a friendly helpful suggestion...)

I still remain firmly committed to trying to goad all the major carriers into establishing Family Sections. It would be sooooo easy and all those who cannot afford or don't want to spend the outrageous money to sit up front in First or Business but still would like to be treated with a little respect and dignity and not be subjected to those mewling, squawking brats oh-so-many parents seem to feel the necessity of bringing aboard would thank each and every carrier a million-fold.

Imagine, dear airlines, what nice extra money you could make by charging a modest service fee to sit in a baby-free zone on a long-haul flight? I'm sure there are millions of harassed long-haul passengers who would gladly shell out for the ability to sit in an area of Economy without babies, devoid of  seat-back kicking junior terrorists and without raucous families sharing their particular dysfunctions and bliss with all of those around them...

The how-to is quite simple.

First, launch an ad campaign promoting the fact that the seats at the back of each plane are safer in crashes, statistically having more survivors. This could be quite effective visually... show a jet liner in its final moments before break up, plunging Earthward, with a family up front in tears, sobbing, terrified. Now pan the camera to the family sitting in the back of the plane in the all-new 'Family Section,' calmly reading magazines, watching their video screens, looking totally relaxed and even smiling, despite the fact that the plane is about to crash...

The announcer intones in quiet, soothing tones:

"See how relaxed the Joneses are? They know their chances of survival are statistically 100 percent higher than those of the Smiths up front. That's why they booked new 'Family Class.' Don't you want your family to survive in the case of an unforeseen tragic airline accident? Think about it. Book new 'Family Class' next time you fly long-haul or intercontinental with Air X."

Those family seats will sell like hotcakes!

Just to make sure there are no foul-ups, there would have to be a few small changes to the reservations software used at check-ins, of course. Anyone buying a ticket for himself or herself plus a minor under say, age 14, would have to automatically be shown only seats in Family Class on the seat selection page. And, of course, the software would need to be rewritten to make sure those crafty sneaks out there who would buy tickets for themselves and then for their children as unaccompanied minors in order to avoid having to sit with their little darlings in the Family Section couldn't trick out the program. The same would hold true for unaccompanied minors - the software ticketing them and allowing seat selection would automatically provide only the row at the very back immediately adjacent to the galley for selection where those well-trained flight attendants could keep their eyes on the little tykes at all times.

The only problem I am able to come up with right now are those silly parents who insist on 'bulkhead' seats to hang their damned bassinettes on, but I am sure Recaro, ZIM, B/E Aerospace or one of the many other seat-makers to the airline industry can come up with some groovy ideas there...

And those who travel without children but insist on sitting in the new Family Section [maybe they are lonely and desire the abuse or perhaps they want to be able to survive better in the event of an unforeseen crash, too? Who knows? There are lots of weirdos traveling these days, as we all know...] can be easily persuaded not to ('full of children,' 'really noisy,' etc.) or, if they insist on sitting there 'anyway,' subjected to an extra fee for taking up 'space dedicated to families.'

Lest you think me totally nuts and are certain that no one else is pondering such frivolous needs as Family Sections, here's some more reading on the subject... and here's more... and still more... 

In summary, instituting Family Sections would make flying easier and better for those of us who don't want noisy babies and loud dysfunctional families around them during that long flight to Grandma's house or to that business meeting the next morning (with the employer who was too cheap to put us in Business in the first place, as they should have).

Yes, airline companies, it's a win-win-win-win-win idea! Now, get cracking!

Let's segue to the next topic at hand. As my friend Gina recently pointed out in a comment on my original Family Sections proposal, there is also something to be said for preventing smelly people from flying. 

In the interest of the odor-free flying public worldwide, I propose that airlines in future (on their websites, when booking, or at the airport or in the departure lounge) ask travellers to fill out a brief questionnaire. It could, of course, be coupled or combined with other useful, personally invasive questions such as those found on U.S. immigration forms asking visitors whether they are Nazis or plan to explode bombs while visiting the country.  

Here are some questions that should be asked:

1. What foods have you eaten today? (Please make a complete list of everything you have ingested in the past 12 hours.)
2. When did you last evacuate your bowels? (Please be accurate to within 30 minutes.)
3. Do you suffer from chronic flatulence? 
4. If you feel a whopping SBD^* coming on, do you feel compelled to share it with others or do you discreetly head for the toilet?
5. Do you habitually ingest a lot of legumes? Are you vegetarian or vegan or some other form of weird greens-only eating human? 
6. Are you wearing antiperspirant less than 8 hours old and have you changed your clothes within 4 hours of beginning your travel?
7. Are you carrying large amounts of smelly cheese on your person or wearing onions or garlic as decorative accessories?
8. Do you suffer from any of the following: Bromhidrosis, halitosis, axillary hyperhidrosis, onychomycosis? [Gentle reader, Google those if they do not mean anything to you. They are the medical terms for various disgusting body odors.]
9.  Are you wearing diapers? Is any member of your party wearing diapers? When were they last changed? (Please be accurate to within 15 minutes.)
10. Are you or any members of your party dead or decomposing?

_______

^*SBD: Silent-But-Deadly. Flatulence of the sneakiest, most dangerous kind.

After completing the questionnaire, answers would be evaluated by trained airport security personnel, which would then also perform an odor check as part of the security scan. Passengers would be instructed to raise their arms during the walk through and while being scanned for explosives, weapons, and the like, a scent-sniffer would also sample and react to any over body odors or disgusting aromas. It could even be adjusted to alert if someone is wearing too much perfume or cologne, or an especially offensive cheap brand. [N.B.Those 'over-scented' passengers would be weeded out and forced to shower before being allowed to catch the next flight to wherever.]

At smaller airports, specially trained odor experts could do the job, as seen in the photo above left. Such measures would help to prevent experiences like mine during my last trip to Africa:

I arrived at the airport in Germany, only to learn that the airplane we were supposed to be taking was kaputt, and instead the airline had substituted a smaller version of the same plane, meaning a lucky 30 or 40 of us supposed to fly would not be on board that evening... 

After a peaceful night in an airport hotel which was surprisingly nice, I was rebooked by said airline. My new trip took me via several other countries on a hopscotch of routes cobbled together in order for me to get me to my destination in a time frame of under a week, since the aircraft type in question had been grounded by the manufacturer for an unknown period due to engine problems.

I boarded my first flight to Beirut, Lebanon. The airline was nice enough to upgrade me to Business class for the enitre journey, which was a good thing... but do read on.

In the Beirut plane, I sat next to a gentleman who felt the need to gas me with the foulest flatulence I have ever had to endure during the entire three-hour flight, all the while stocking up on more odor-producing legumes in the form of tahini, baba ganoush, and other delights of the Middle East known to cause voluminous gas clouds once digested. The worst part was that there was no warning. Each time I was about to be enveloped in yet another deadly yet unseen veil of malodorus fumes, my seatmate passed his toxins quietly, subtly and with an elegance unsurpassed for someone who is breaking deadly winds that could have been used as the basis for a new poison gas... and he supplemented it by speaking to me in a steady stream of garlic breath! Of coourse, it was just my luck that Business was completely full that evening, so I was unable to plot an escape to another seat... I was nearly comatose by the time we landed in Beirut and so grateful for being able to escape into the lovely airport with its functioning air conditioning and odor-free environment.

Next, I boarded another airline's plane to Abu Dhabi. Here, again in Business, I was spoiled by a menu that was hard to choose from since it was so voluminous, but sadly also contained salmon, a variety of exquisitely stinky cheeses and a number of other malodorous choices which my fellow travelers all seemed to revel in choosing, rather than sticking to such pleasant-smelling fare as Carbonnade a la Flamande, Duck Bigarade or a delightful Boeuf a la Wellington.

All too quickly the rather cramped space of the Business cabin became a foul blend of disgusting food-borne odors (most likely mixed with a few discreetly emitted bouts of flatulence and stifled belching). By the time we landed in Abu Dhabi (sand, sand and more sand everywhere!) and I was able to repair to the Business lounge for my eight-hour layover, I was nearly in need of a respirator and oxygen tank. 

The flight to Johannesburg aboard the same airline also had an odorific episode. The gentleman (and I do employ the term in a very loose fashion here) sitting across the aisle from me apparently felt more at ease bedding down for the night on his flat-bed seat than I did; he removed all of his clothing except his undershorts and emitted such delightful body odor that at one point one of the flight attendants was seen discreetly scenting the air using disinfectant spray as he slept. The fumes from the spray can at last helped me pass out and drift into a semi-vegetative sleep-state... 

When I arrived in South Africa, naturally I was a wreck from all the malodorous assaults on my poor proboscis. It took me nearly a week to recover. And so, on the basis of personal experience and the experiences of others, I feel it is high time to institute such new controls as outlined above. What do you think, dear reader? Your input is welcome...

Now last, but not least, is the issue of fat people flying.

I am a fat people. I fly. Often. And while parts of me may sort of 'ooze' over the limits of my minuscule airplane seat (when I'm in Economy), the only person who has ever complained with an absolute slip of a thing who didn't even fill half of her seat and had no reason to complain at all... but the crux of the matter is the fact that the airlines insist on using silly measurements that only about 30% of the world's population could describe as "adequate," let alone "bearable" or even "generous."  

The answer to this dilemma is easy: Make the airlines change their seats.  There is an interesting discussion brewing on just this very topic worldwide on varioous and sundry passenger fora, and it is also being looked at by airlines. (One of the more perverse suggestions from carriers is Ryanair's notion that on shorter routes, they should be allowed to substitute rack-like devices designed to support standing passengers rather than provide real seats!)

Naturally, a lot of the major carriers claim to have redesigned their seats with thinner backs allowing for tighter seat pitch (the distance between seats) but any idiot understands that if I have thick seat backs at a pitch of 34 inches, which I replace with new seat backs allowing for a 31 inch seat pitch, I still have only 31 inches between the seats, even if it supposedly "feels" like 34...

Of course airlines love these new seats. They are lighter, meaning they save expensive fuel, and because they are closer together, that old 89-seat cabin now holds 100 passengers.... who wouldn't love that? Passengers! (Here is a great article about just this topic...)

So now what should we all do till we can make airlines acquiesce and give in to demands for  Family Sections, passenger body odor prevention measures and better, bigger seats? Well, again another link... here's a great way to make flying and your entire vaction more pleasant... you just have to do your homework, and this article will show you how.

Well, Bloggy, it has been a while since I last posted, so I promise to visit more often and more regularly. Until then, toodles!

 

 

Wow, time sure can fly... why can't I?

Hello Blogette,

it has been positively ages, for which I apologize. But there have been quite a few good reasons for the long absence, so let me explain before you go off at me...

If you remember, most of my previous postings were, um, to say the least, rather acerbic and aimed at my former place of employment at TITS (you know, Teutonic International Transportation Service*) since working conditions there were less than ideal.

Well, almost as if there really is providence or some higher power (and being somewhat of an atheist, you know how I feel about that idea), in September the world there started to crumble. South Africa's morose and overtly anti-white government started giving TITS and other foreign companies employing non-South Africans a ton of trouble when work permits had to be renewed, and so it was with mine. I was thus spirited away from Cape Town (one of the most beautiful and most dangerous places on Earth) to Europe so they did not lose my working capacity, and thus I arrived back here in the Czech Republic to which I had first emigrated in 2006... full circle, so to speak.

After less than two weeks here, I realized that TITS here was more like what it had first been when I arrived in Cape Town - a lovely place to work which appreciates its employees and treats us with dignity and respect. And so I asked for a transfer and voila, here I am.

"Well, that's not such a big deal," I hear you objecting, Bloggymathingy.

Well, yes, it was. Even though TITS is a globally present company, they are still run on a very small-brained scale. You would think that a lateral transfer would be a simple matter, but it was not and hasn't been.  Getting here was comical in and of itself:

One fine September day Big Boss came to my desk and said: "Walk with me. We need to talk." Gulp...

It was proposed that I move to the Czech Republic office on a temporary basis so they could have enough time to straighten out the work permit mess. And they would pay for the trip, accommodation would be provided, and and and...  so far, so good, no?

Well, in theory, yes. In practice, no. No prep time for travel and leaving on another one of those bogus South African holidays the next evening (!) meant no laundry or clean clothes to pack, no paycheck in my account yet (holiday delay), no gas in the car to get home and back to the office, and no money with which to get to the airport, etc. As advances are unheard of at TITS in South Africa, I was even more amazed when one was swiftly arranged. And off to Europe I went...

The trip itself was grotty - I was booked on that big new airplane they all talk about, you know the double-deckered one, and was supposed to be all thrilled about its supposed luxury and superior accommodations in all classes. Bohunkus! It's a crappy big plane like any other, at least in Steerage, where they put people flying on free tickets. I was way at the back, which has the added feature of 8 toilets at the very back right behind your seat arranged in a semi-circle. The periodic odorific   ambiance excluded, the flush sounds alone were enough to keep anyone from sleeping or resting on a 12-hour flight... and the seats are hard as nails, have really poor leg room and generally could be registered with terrorist organizations as potential torture devices... that is, unless you are a skinny midget.

After that flight, I got on the plane to the Czech Republic, and was bumped out of my assigned seat. Sent back to ride "jump seat" in the galley, humiliation was added in to the mix - as I am not slim or small nor a midget, the seat belts on the jump seat, those X-shaped ones like in fighter planes, didn't fit, so loud calls were made by the ultra-Teutonic bitchy head trolley-dolly (for all to hear on the P/A) telling the cockpit they needed to "swap" me with the off-duty pilot flying "jump" there.  For some reason the seat belts there are bigger and so I flew the whole way in the cockpit.

"Oh, how exciting!" you say? No, not really. Pilots on modern jetliners really don't do much, since the planes more or less fly themselves. They check things on check lists, occasionally speak to towers and flight centers and otherwise don't do much of anything at all... and for that they earn the big bucks!

Once in Prague, I had to make my way here, and there was little help proffered by my "travel orders" - not even our local office address or phone number was shared! Well, intrepid traveler that I am, that didn't stop me and a comfy two hour bus ride later (sarcasm intended) I arrived. With a little further sleuthing I was able to find the office and after a few comical mistakes about where I was to be lodged, I finally was able to bed down, catch up on sleep and become human once more. 

That was in September. It's January now...

Good things: My sister Marcia and her hubby Bob visited me from Ireland at the end of November and we had a blast, traveled to Bratislava together, went to a bazillion Christmas markets. Then my sister Peggy and half-sister Molly came to Vienna, so I went down and visited and went to more Christmas Markets. And I also discovered that Eric, my grad school roomie and good friend, is back in Vienna (he is from there originally), so that improved things even more.

And life just kept getting better and better. I bought a car (a Fiat Seicento, which broke down ten days after being bought and is still in the shop), I went on a few excursions, met some wonderful new friends here, threw a lovely Christmas dinner, and was having friends over on New Year's Eve when a phone call from Marcia told me my mother had died shortly before. That was, while a shock due to its suddenness, not altogether unexpected and of course engendered another tip, this time from Vienna (closer to our office than Prague and easier to fly from) to Washington, D.C.

And now I'm back home, albeit with Mom's cat, Lucille. In the meantime I have also reconnected with my last girlfriend (yes, the real kind) from high school, who actually lives in Austria, too! So, while the daily annoyances of life continue (incorrect paycheck deductions, growing older, aching joints, ice, snow, etc.) I'm here and live is actually truly getting better... (cue Mama Cass Elliott song here).

So look forward to more here after the hiatus... and don't be so bitchy about my having had to do other stuff besides blog, okay?

Ta-ta for now (TTFN).

Your friend,

(The Last) Baron

From World War 2 to 1956...More Baronial History

Ah, Bloggette, my dearest...  I did promise a second installment on this topic, so here it is.

 When we last spoke of the topic, the Baronial family was facing the onset of World War II. Franz IV. was conscripted into the regular German army, the Wehrmacht, in 1940 and immediately saw action. His tour of duty, which lasted until the German surrender on 8 May 1945. During that time, he saw active duty in Poland and Russia, and was among those trapped in a pincer movement outside Stalingrad during the legendary Battle of Stalingrad. It was there he earned an Iron Cross for extreme bravery, as a tank commander. At one point, when the Russian army had completely cut off all lines of communication and supply, Franz IV. commandeered a military off-road vehicle (my, how hard I tried not to use the word "Jeep" here, even though it was something of that order) and managed to singlehandedly drive it through the Russian lines under the tank cannons and reestablish a link with the main army. 

Franz was wounded often, and several times life-threateningly, mainly through mortar shell fragments. One of these at one point struck him in his neck and pierced his jugular. Franz's tank driver saved his life by placing his thumb on the spurting hole and quickly driving their tank directly into the field hospital, or Lazarett. As it was a field hospital under fire, there was no cosmetic or fancy surgery available; Franz was sewn up with the metal shard lodged in his jugular, and sent on his merry way. Until he died, we never ate anything really hot or terribly cold, as it would set his fragment "tingling," which he did not enjoy and therefore ice cream was a rare treat, just as "steaming hot soup," as my grandmother on Mother's side, Edith preferred it be served, was also something we didn't see too often.

 Peter, a few years younger than Franz, desperately wanted to emulate his older brother and join the army. As he was Mutti's Nest- haekchen, her baby as we would say, the topic was not popular. But eventually conscription time came, and Peter enlisted. His brother's rapid rise to commissioned officer in mind, Peter sought to shorten his own "stellar rise." Unfortunately, he chose to do so by enlisting in the Partei and joined the nefarious NSDAP to advance his career. Sadly, it ended it very quickly - he fell at the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italy, in March 1944. I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere, but...

Peter's death was the one major heartache and pain his mother, Elli, never really recovered from, as you'll learn a little later in this blog. Both Fritz and Elli made "pilgrimages" to his grave site for many years.

Franz IV. meanwhile managed to elude capture by the Russian army. As the end of fighting, he and a comrade made their way back to Germany. They walked for miles, and once over the border in Poland, managed to catch sporadic train service along parts of their long trek back to ruined Berlin. At one point, starved and thirsty, Franz and his comrade saw a slice of bread in a gutter. They picked it up and, instead of fighting, split it. Franz told me once that it was, to his near-delirious state of mind then, the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, dirt and all.

When they reached the Elbe, others heading in the same direction told them that the Russian army was hooting German officers on sight and nt asking any questions, either beforehand or afterwards. Franz pulled all insignia off his uniforms and through them, along with his medals and decorations for valor, into the mighty river, and thus was likely saved from summary execution.

Upon his return, home looked very different to Franz. More than 90 percent of all of Berlin's structures were either totally destroyed and uninhabitable or nearly so. It was uncommon for people to live in their former flats with one or more walls entirely missing or open to the elements. Fortunately, Glasowerstrasse 27 suffered no direct hits from the fierce bombardment during the final days before capitulation, save for one incendiary bomb which had fallen into the third floor laundry room through an open skylight and failed to detonate. The iron foundry next door, however, had not been so lucky. It had been the target of a number of attacks, but was operable except for needing a new roof.

Fritz and Franz set about returning the family business to operating condition and sorting out what to do about numerous ruined family properties jointly owned with various relatives. Elli's family had invested heavily in Berlin Mietskasernen or rental apartment blocks, most of which had been severely damaged or wholly annihilated. All the little comforts of life we normally take for granted, such as electricity, gas, water and sewerage service were only available for short periods of time or not at all. 

The question of "what's next" was on everyone's lips and Berliners no less were anxious about their fate than any other Germans. Food was in short supply, and those families with a roof over their heads were required to take in those who had been bombed out. Glasowerstrasse 27, with its plentiful bedrooms, was no exception, and so two refugee families were billeted in the house, which was divided into three large apartments. Our family moved to the ground floor, where dining room, music salon, Gartensaal, the Herrenzimmer (my grandfather's imposing study, at left above)) and the Turmzimmer (Tower Room, at right) were primitively converted into sleeping and living quarters for Fritz, Franz, Elli and Frieda, Fritz's dowager mother. Like many old turn of the century homes, the house had but one large bathroom on the second floor, so that was shared by all three families until Fritz managed to find materials with which to build a second toilet under the stairs on the ground floor and a bathtub could be installed in the cavernous old kitchen next to it.

One day not too long after the end of the war, Elli came into the study with a sheaf of papers that were deeds or shares in the various properties the family owned in and around Berlin. She asked her two men what they should do about them, and Fritz shrugged his shoulders and deferred to Franz. Franz, in what would someday become evident as possibly one of the biggest mistakes in his young life, told his mother that he knew his cousin Georg was taking charge of the shares and interests held by Elli's two sisters, Clara and Alice, and that he didn't want to get in Georg's hair about "a bunch of ruins," that he thought she should just sign them over to Georg. Fritz agreed, with the exception of the family's newest acquisition, a large plot of land with a log cabin on it close to the old co-op house owned by all of the sisters in Bad Saarow on the shores of the Scharmuetzelsee lake (see Part 1 for picture). As Fritz had purchased this large new lot in 1938 and wanted to be able to enjoy the idyllic lake or possibly even build a house there, depending on the future, he insisted that deed be kept.

 Business at the foundry was just getting started. Obstacles to a full and speedy recovery were many. Russian troops frequently marched all over the city and "secured" things they deemed good to have or send back home as "informal reparations." One day, Franz heard clanking noises in the courtyard of the foundry and went to investigate. He found a small detachment of Russian soldiers busily dismounting the engines from the company's two pre-war Dodge trucks. When the "technicians" saw him, a number of threats were shouted in Russian, but the most understandable of all was the cocking of numerous rifles, which made their intention perfectly understandable. Luckily, Franz trusted his instincts and quickly withdrew, leaving the troops to send the two Dodge engines back to Russia with the millions of other illegally confiscated or stolen items that left Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and all the many other nations Russians now regarded as "their domain" through those channels - to the victor go the spoils... 

 My great-grandmother, Frieda, also had her own run-in with the Russians. In June of 1945, she was walking from church to Glasowerstrasse 27 when she was attacked by Russian soldiers. Although already in her late 80s, she resisted, and one Russian soldier cut off her left ear, then raped her. After he was finished, several others kicked her and then the detachment moved off laughing and looking for other women to abuse and violate. According to Russian and German sources, more than 100,000 Berlin women were raped between April and June of 1945, many of them multiple times. The 2008 German film, A Woman in Berlin, is based on similar events and is truly worth viewing.

 Among the numerous tests the family was yet to endure, many were rooted in the division of Germany after surrender. U.S. troops had occupied much of southern central Germany, but U.S. president Harry Truman had not allowed them to advance on Berlin to prevent clashes with Russian troops and thus further complicating an already shaky alliance with Stalin. The map at left shows the division of Germany and which country occupied what parts at that time. Ultimately, the U.S. "traded" off the entire purple shaded area with Stalin for half of Berlin, which it then split with the remaining two allies, Britain and France. This was a lucky development for Berliners, as they otherwise would have been completely cut off from the west when the Iron Curtain fell after the tenuous relationship to Russia soured and sparked the Cold War. While the decision to keep American troops from advancing was probably not the best ever made, the subsequent decision to trade off a large part of central (later East) Germany for a stake in Berlin was an inspired one, even though it did not seem so at the time and caused great consternation among the western allies and the Germans themselves. Without the trade-off, I likely would not be here writing this entry, as the future would have unfolded completely differently.

 Another test still to affect the family as it did all Berliners followed in 1948. On June 24, Russian troops marched up and completely encircled what was now known as West Berlin, cutting off railway and water routes, telephone lines and blocking all access ways to the city except air routes. Berlin was located 100 miles inside the Soviet occupation zone, and most food for the city was produced in the Soviet zone. When the city was blockaded, food grew scarce in no time at all. Among the many reasons for the Blockade the Russians cited was primarily that a new currency had been introduced, the Deutsche Mark without their tacit approval, and that therefor the four powers agreement sharing responsibility for the administration of the city was no longer valid. Therefore, so the Russians claimed, they were only doing what they felt was "right and just" to protect their interests from "Western imperialist aggression." The Cold War had begun in earnest.

In what turned out to be a major rethinking of the plans for Germany after the war, Americans, British and French politicians decided to abandon the so-called Morgenthau plan, which had called for all industrial capability in Germany to be completely dismantled and for the country to be transformed into a low-level agrarian society so that the would never be able to begin another war. Instead, a massive airlift was begun, with American and British military planes flying  646 tons of flour and wheat, 125 tons of cereal, 64 tons of fat, 109 tons of meat and fish, 180 tons of dehydrated potatoes, 180 tons of sugar, 11 tons of coffee, 19 tons of powdered milk, 5 tons of whole milk for children, 3 tons of fresh yeast for baking, 144 tons of dehydrated vegetables, 38 tons of salt and 10 tons of cheese. In total, 1,534 tons in daily to keep the city's population of over two and a half million people alive, in addition another 3,475 tons of coal and gasoline to keep the city heated and powered. Through combined use of aircraft and careful coordination, the three western allies managed to keep the necessary supplies coming in in what can best be called "conveyor belt fashion," causing the Soviets to end their futile attempt at siege by the end of May 1949. Allies continued the airlift until September of that year in order to further stabilize supply levels and lessen dependence on food procured from the Soviet-occupied zone.

After the blockade ended, life had become more stable, although it in no way approached the quality it had before the war. The refugees were still living in the upper two floors of the family home, food was still rationed all across Europe, and the foundry was in need of new products and new markets in order to provide an adequate living for the family. During his long journey home from the Russian front, my father had been fortunate to share one of the interminably long, slow railroad rides through parts of Poland where rail was still operating sporadically with a man who was a bell founder. When Franz and he got to talking, he understood that our family owned an iron foundry and told my father he should consider making bells. Franz first laughed at the idea, since all bells he had ever heard that were cast from iron had always sounded terrible, but the old foundry-man told him that there was a secret to the process, which he shared with my father. Franz wrote the formulas and tests and other information he was given by the old man in a little notebook and carried it back to Berlin, where he shared it with Fritz. Experimental casting began in 1950, and the first bells ready for sale were available shortly thereafter. With most churches in Germany having melted their bronze bells for the war effort and being unable to afford new bronze bells to replace them, the market was a hot one, and soon the foundry was busier than it had been since before the war.

  In 1952, Franz was completing his interrupted studies to become an engineer at Berlin's Technical University, when he was one of a dozen students selected to go on a "fact finding" trip to the United States under the auspices of the Marshall Plan, the western allies plan to rebuild rather than dismantle Germany to provide it with economic stability so that the tragic events of after World War I which led to Hitler's rise to power would not repeat themselves. This rethinking of Germany's fate was one of the main factors that had incited the Soviets to begin the blockade. Franz and his fellow engineering students were sent on a two week journey all across the United States, an especially to Detroit, at that time the "motor capital" of the world, where most cars on the planet were being produced. Not only were the young students to be awed by the sheer immensity of the industrial plants there which were unrivaled after the destruction of most European industrial complexes during the war, but the idea was also to recruit some of these future bright minds to work there.

During their trip the bright young men were introduced to locals and treated to various entertainments and shows in their honor as well as dinners and luncheons - in short, shown traditional U.S. hospitality. One evening in Detroit was set aside for a square dance in Grosse Pointe, then one of the best sections of the city. A pretty young woman named Beth was spending a quiet evening at home when her telephone rang and a friend asked her to come down to the community center to help make the young Germans feel welcome. She declined, but by the third call, her resistance was worn down sufficiently for her to reply, "Oh, all right." She dropped her two little twin girls, age 4, off with her parents next door and went to the community center, quite sure it would be a waste of time.

 Well, what can I say, dear Bloggymathingy... it was love at first sight. Beth walked in to the room, and there was Franz. Their eyes locked, bolts of pure unadulterated love flew across the room, sparks flew and... well, tune in again soon for the next installment:

The Baron is Born.