Chicago

Did I mention yet, How much I HATE the chicago airport?

Worst one ever.

Domodeved in Moscow makes it look like slow and confused.  Minneapolis makes it look pathetic.  I wish I could just yeal out how crapy this place is.  I walked around for almost an hour looking for a place to charge my laptop.  There are none.  The Internet works, but I have to pay for it.  I don't mind paying, but they force you to look at advertisments.  Come on, I'm paying for the service, don't show me F*** adds.

They took away my apple and sasuges at customs.  The one guy was nice, but the other was rude.  When I made my decleartion of 1 liter of alchohol, he looks at me and says "Your one of those people... GO to gate 4"  At gate 4 they took away my apple and diddn't bother to check my alchohole.

Then to make it worse, they check your lugage on through to your domestic flight, and then make you go out into th eparking lot.  So after airport security in Moscow, Government security in Moscow, and Airline security in Moscow, Customes complete with bags being all looked through.  You then have to exit the airport and start over with security.  And they are so slow here.  And the fat, chigago people.  Being in Russia for 10 days, you start to get used to every one being more or less fit.  I fit into the catagory of fattest people in Russia.  Then here, I have to wait behind a fat kid who says he has to take his laptop out of his bag about 5 times, befor he puts his bag though without taking out the laptop, so of course they make him go through again.  And he had a watch on, and coins and a belt, and a necklas, he must have gone through the stuped medel detector 10 times.  And is mother was the same.  No problem, I have lots of time, but very anyoing.

For the record, I will not fly thorugh Chicago again, no matter how much I'm perswaded.  American Airlines was ok at best, but I would need compensaoitn to sit in this airport again.

Sorry for the rant, I'm safe and waiting for my flight to Minneapolis.

In Chicago

Looks like I made it to Chicago just fine. Not to many people sitting around my gate so it may be an empty flight which will be nice. I really can't pinpoint it, but I really don't like this airport. I watched a cleaning lady emptying a garbage can and she had a nasty bag full of garbage on top of her portable trash bin, it shifted and had a hole in it, and a foul smelling fluid came poring out. She did nothing about it, letting it spill onto the carpet with me and anther person looking on. The other person said something to the cleaning lady and she barked at him that she saw it. Finished her task letting it continue spilling, and then finally adjusting the bag so it would stop spilling. A woman sitting very close, did not know until the guy near me said something, she moved her bags away from the spill, and the cleaning lady started barking at her not to move her bags since nothing was spilled on them direct. I really just don't like this airport. Nothing good here, I looked into flying Minneapolis to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Moscow, but was strongly persuaded against, since the airport in Moscow that KLM flys into is supposedly much harder to navigate, and not as well organized. But next time I will try it. Can it be worse than Chicago? I'm willing to find out.

Post Production

So The trip is over, but I have have so many pictures I will have to do a bunch of updates to share them.On the last full day we went to a few different places. One of them was a large shopping center under red Square.  I don't know the name of it but its 3 stories underground, and its main entrance is from the metro.  Masha was trying to find a gift for her mother, but the thing she was interested in they didn't have the right version of.  The shopping center was very interesting, it was very large.  Just a little smaller than the Rosdail mail.  Totally underground, you can see the top of it on Google Earth, but it looks like a dome on the ground, which is a skylight.

We walked allot in Moscow on our last night.  Mom, don't be to upset, but I have things to tell you that might make you a little crazy.  We had a wonderful time.  I did not have a single moment of unhappiness or disappointment.  Masha was more wonderful than I could have expected or hopped for, and Russia was far more friendly and fun than I had anticipated.  It was very safe.  If you could see a monument you could see a police officer, and if you are in St. Peters or Moscow then you can see a monument.  I don't think I was ever out of shouting distance from an police officer for if I needed one.  Never was I given an unfriendly look, and many times people approached me and asked me questions in Russian, so I look enough like I belonged that people did not assume I was an American tourist as apposed to a Russian tourist.  I had a strange sense of belonging that I'm not used to.  I'm not sure if its the more social attitudes of the people or just being with Masha.

The only thing I will say is without an interpreter, it would be a difficult trip.  In Moscow many people speak English, but in St. Peters there was very very little.  If any one wants to go, I'm happy to go along, and I'm sure I could convince Masha to come again.  

So Chicago cancled my flight to minneapolis, so I got to spend an extra day on the trip.  I'm about to board a plane to Minneapolis finaly, and get home.