Austria, first impressions

So, we came yesterday, which means that we are already here more than 1 day.

First things that suddenly came as surprise:

it rains and it is even sometimes cold,
no turn on red,
green light is actually green here, in US it was white,
small cars,
couldnt find cereals without sugar yet

Overall its nice here and it is much easier for me now, than it was year ago. At least not everything is completely new. Just most of the things, but not all of them.

Costa rica practical information

Some more practical information about Costa Rica.

Dollars are accepted everywhere, credit card mostly. Although it is sometimes better to pay in the local currency to avoid additional cost caused by the currency rate used in that or this business. But the prices are overall low, so it doesn't really matter that much. In a restaurant you can get a big bowl of good salad for about 4-5 dollars, the main course for 5-10, depending on what it is and in which restaurant. In Santa Elena, where we are staying right now, we chose to dine not in a restaurant on the "main street", but in one of those who are just around the corner and it turned out to be about 10-15% cheaper and this is just literally 50 meters away from the more expensive ones.

The 3 hours zip-line tour, which included 11 different zip-lines and also the transportation from/to hotel only costed $45!!!! I think it's really cheap.

A 1-hour massage costed $50.

Public transportation is ridiculously cheap, $1 for a ride. But it's not very good developed, it's not so easy to find the schedule and buses are not riding very often. But the buses are fine.

So far we really don't think it's a good idea to rent a car in Costa Rica. Unless you know for sure that you are only going to take the biggest road. Normally the most advantage of taking a rental car is the freedom to get to places off the main touristic routes. Here it's not the case - small roads are really bad.

You cannot buy a sim-card in the Liberia airport. You cannot buy anything in the Liberia airport. There is not a single cafe or a restaurant. We almost starved because we forgot that there was no meal on our 5-hour jetBlue flight from New York and were desperate to find out that the Liberia airport is absolutely empty. There is only one small mini-market, where you actually can buy some pastry, but that is it. Luckily we had as our next transportation a shuttle from the Hilton hotel, to which there is a free shuttle from the airport and where there is a very nice restaurant even with surprisingly reasonable prices. There is also a swimming pool in that hotel, which seemed to be accessible for public (we didn't try though, didn't have enough time). But the hotel itself is not in the city, it's separated from the civilization, so if you get there, I don't really know how to get out of there for free.

Again, English is not very common. You can, of course, always use the language of gestures like I do, but great, if you can speak some Spanish, at least some general phrases and numbers.

Costa rica

So, we left USA for good. I was for some reason surprised that there was no passport control while exiting US. We just went through the security check, boarded the plane and here we are in Costa rica. Don't know why, but I expected some kind of "exit control" to leave the US:)

My first and most important impression about being in Costa Rica now is "Thanks God it's not that hot". We are in the very middle of the rainy season and are in mountains now though. Things might change, we have plans to travel around the country. But for the moment I feel very comfortable (for I hate when it's hot, I don't feel good when it is). It is not raining all the time, but the significant part of the time the air is full of these micro-rain-drops and the sky is cloudy. In the morning it rained though approximately until 11. Exactly during the time we were in the cloud forest. Since we don't have a real rain gear (we wanted to keep our lagguge to as small size as possible) we were totally wet.... but we enjoyed it a lot!!! We missed rain a lot while in California. After the cloud forest we underwent different plans. Johannes went to do the zip-line trip, which I refused to do as I consider myself to have had enough adrenaline in my life already. And I shopped a little bit and went for an 1-hour=$50 massage, which was gorgeous, just wonderful. Shopping was not that successful, we are staying in a tiny town, maybe even a village in a Pension Santa Elena. The place itself is really very small. We came here yesterday by a 5-hour drive with a shuttle bus from Liberia airport. During this ride the football game Costa Rica vs. Greece took place. And the driver was listening and even watching the match during the drive, which made me a little bit nervous. At some point we were passing some small village and he saw people on the street watching the game at some bar and asked for our permission to make a stop and watch, it was the climax of the game. We were only 3 passengers in the bus, we and one more girl from New Hempshire, and we didn't mind. So we actually witnessed how Costa Rica won and how Costaricans reacted on this:

It was touching.

There is one more video of people celebrating, it is made already in Santa Elena:

So, we are lucky to be here during the time when all the people are extremely happy and joyfull:)

People are generally quite nice here. Most of them doesn't speak a decent English. I got lucky and the girl that made a massage for me, spoke English. Apart from that Johannes is using his Spanish skills and I also try to memorize some words and phrases and use them.

Wi-fi is everywhere. Still we bought a sim-card today just in case to be able to make calls. Buying a sim-card was not so easy, because even guys in the electronic shop didn't speak any English, just no English at all.

Before coming here one of our biggest concerns was either to rent a car or not. We are now glad that we didn't rent one. First of all the roads are really bad. Not all of them. Some of them are ok. But there is a big enough portion of those that I wouldn't dare to drive myself. In our current plan we do some distances with the shuttle buses, some with the public buses and we also have 2 very cool transportations. One of them is tomorrow. We are going to the Arenal Vocano area by horseback-boat-jeep. Another is river rafting. We don't just raft, we use rafting to reach our destination.

There are many homeless dogs and cats on the streets. They are allowed (or better to say not restricted from entering all the shops and even restaurants). They are not annoying though.

It is only 20:00 (oh, how happy I am to finally switch back to 24-hour time measure system, km and kg!), but we are already at the hotel, because there is nothing really to do here in the evening. The sunset is around 18 and the sunrise is around 6. Although I'm not quite right. There is a night walk tour here, where you are being guided in the forest and even promised to see a lot of wild life. But we decided no to do that. Apart from that on can sit in one of the restaurants, that is pretty much it.

New York

I already hate this city. Reminds me too much of overcrowded Moscow subway in my youth when I had to take the subway.

Boston

So it is the 4th day we are in Boston and today we are leaving. Although we don't actually live in Boston, but in Cambridge, a small town just across the bridge, where the MIT located. Friends of ours live here and we are staying with them. And because of that we haven't only seen Boston, but also Cambridge and Harvard, which are both nice little towns. 

We liked Boston, also I didn't like it more than Chicago. Chicago seemed to be more beautiful to me for some reason. 

So, we spent 3 lovely days here. First two days we were visiting the city and yesterday we were celebrating Maria's birthday. Her husband has organized it in a cool way - he planned a boat trip to one of the Boston islands for 4 of us and when we came there her other friends were waiting there and we had a picnic. She was of course surprised and glad and the party was really fun. Everybody was speaking Spanish except me (my husband speaks some Spanish too). But they were also speaking English to me. 

So, we had a picnic, than walked around the island (it only took around 20 minutes, the island was tiny but nice), than we bathed in the ocean (only 3 of us - me, Johannes and Efren). The ocean was not so cold, warmed than the Michigan lake in Chicago, where we also swam couple of days ago. 

In Chicago it is very easy to bathe - the closest beach is just 30 minutes by foot from the downtown, it is clean and comfortable. The water was clean and calm. 

So, after the picnic we had the following plan. One of Efren's colleagues, an italian Giovanni was to play piano at the Italian society center and we were going to visit the concert. We were late from the picnic and considered not to change our clothes and go as is, but luckily finally we did it, and I even put on the dress that I just bought that day in Boston (we don't have any fancy clothes with us, we only have very limited luggage). And it was a very good decision. When we arrived to the place where the concert was about to start, we found ourselves in a really noble society. We were also the youngest and even though we changed, we were still underdressed. All the men were wearing suits and women beautiful dresses. And it was not like the concert we were expecting to see, there were no chairs in rows, but the tables. 

So, we joined the table we were assigned to where 2 guests were already seating. They were two aged americans, were nice couple, we enjoyed the evening with them. It turned out that the wife was going to go to St. Petersburg in July, so I exchanged the contact with her and hope to keep in touch. 

Some time later Giovanni joined us to eat something before his performance. 

First there were some official speeches hold, partly in italian. I only understood that there is some anniversary this year and also that they have a new president whom they were introducing. 

Before the speeches there were snacks. During the speeches the snacks were cleaned up and the main dish was prepared. And then the most awful thing happened. 

The speeches were over and Giovanni was invited to the stage to start playing. And at the same time they announced the time for the main course!!! So at the same time with his playing people stood up from their places and went to line up and get the food. It was literally the nightmare of any classical musician - nobody was listening and it was terribly loud in the room!!! We were really shocked to see this kind of treating the classical musician, so we just went closer to the venue to hear Giovanni. He was playing great, several Scarlatti sonatas which are very technically complex and some Chopin. I may imagine how awful he felt with all that sounds coming from all around. I just cannot understand how was it possible to plan the event like this at all. 

So, Giovanni finished playing and returned to our table. After him there was another pianist, who was also playing good, but nobody listened to him either. 

Johannes even came up to one of the speakers and told him that nobody couldn't hear anything and the guy (actually that was some important person, I don't know his title though) started to go around and say tschhh-tschhhh, which of course didn't really help. 

The rest of the evening was nice, we enjoyed the time with our Spanish friends, a new italian friend and new american friends a lot. We went to a bar afterwards for a drink. There we were discussing the politics loudly and at some point while Giovanni was telling us something about the italian government, 2 guys from the nearby table approached him, they were from Italy too. 

Singing in the train

Denver

And this is from Denver:

Laughing in the middle of nowhere

Enjoy this very funny video from our unexpected stop in the middle of nowhere:

Delay, still traveling

June 16, 2014 7:49pm

Exactly 5 hours ago we were supposed to step off the train in Chicago. Now we were supposed to be in the Millennium park listening an open-air concert. 

Didn't work out. We are still in the train and still have about 8 hours ahead. 

So, how did this all happen? 

They told us that this was actually an exception and a really ridiculous accident, because there was nothing wrong with our train or with the rails on our way. 

It all started with the tornados in Nebraska. The California Zephyr opposite to ours didn't get affected by it itself as far as we are concerned, but some part of the rails was. And here starts the ridiculous chain of circumstances. So, the rails had to be repaired and cleaned. It was done. But then the train couldn't just go on moving, because all the rails in US do not belong to Amtrak, they belong to some private party. The owner's representatives had to come over, review the status and approve that the rails could be used. So, it added some more time. After that it turned out that the crew's working hours have expired. That's why we were waiting for that train in Denver yesterday. We had to pick up some of it's cars. So, we waited for those, got them and went on. But then at some point, the working hours of our crew also expired and this was one of my previous posts about. We just had to stay where we are and wait for the re-crew. So why couldn't that one be sent to us beforehand so that we wouldn't have to wait that long? Guess what - they didn't have the real back-up crew, they had to use one of the crew that was working just before and according to the federal law had to get at least 13 hours of rest before moving out for the next assignment. 

Additional delay was added by the fact, that the freight trains have priority here before the passenger ones. So as soon as the passenger train goes out of schedule, it doesn't fit into planned distribution of the rails anymore and has to wait more in some places to let the freight train pass by. 

This all gave us 13 hours of delay in total. 

Our estimated arrival time to Chicago is Tuesday instead of 3 pm Monday. 

IT's a pity that we will miss the concert. Also we have signed up for a free walking tour at 10am on Tuesday and won't be as fit as we planned for it anymore. In the end, we will just miss half of a day in Chicago where we didn't have that much time planned. Our next flight is already on Wednesday. 

We got free meals twice. Once it was that beef stew and second time we received some terrible lunch boxes with disgusting white-bread sandwiches, chips and cookies in it. Oh, yeah, and pickles. There were also pickles in that lunch box for some reason. Better than nothing though. 

It was surprising for us to find out that there was nothing on any of the stations we had a stop. We were expecting at least some kiosk with snacks, maybe even a place to buy a real coffee... nothing. Most of the stops we made were just nothing. Ruined buildings and very hot. 

Another thing that we regret to miss is crossing the Mississippi River. It is couple of hours before Chicago, which according to our new schedule is 2am. 

Overall we don't regret taking this train trip. Even with all these troubles we are enjoying it in many ways. 

But we wouldn't recommend Amtrak to anybody who might get easily upset if his/hers plans get disturbed or has to be in some place strictly on time.

To be fair

They just gave us free lunch. A tiny portion of rice with beef stew. And for Johannes only stew, cause they were out if rice by the time he came (5 minutes later than myself):)))

I already read my book. Good that we have laptop, can watch movies:)

The mood in the train is only getting better. Nobody is complaining, people are polite and friendly. I am very surprised.

We have just had a 5 minutes stop on Lincoln, NE. 12 hours behind the schedule.

Funny thing is that when I write about this to our airbnb host he wrote back "is that going to affect the time of your check-in"? I couldn't think about answering anything apart from "we won't be able to check-in before our arrival to Chicago".

Finally he told he would leave the key to security guy and we can get in anytime, even during the night. Security in the house - sounds promising.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere OR Amtrak sucks

June 16, 2014 7.40am

Now we are sitting in our train, train is not going, we're in Nebraska, in the middle of nowhere, just about 200 miles away from our next big stop in Denver and 20 miles before next planned stop. We're in the middle of nowhere, even on some kind of a hill. The thing is that we  got awaken about 20 minutes ago by the announcement from the train crew. The announcement told us that the current crew is suddenly out of working hours and now according to the federal law they are not allowed to run the train further, They have to wait for the re-crew. And that one according to them won't arrive earlier than 3 hours later. The biggest question we have here is why did we have to wait in this place, why couldn't they leave us stuck in Denver or at least at some other station where we would be allowed to exit the train. Here, in the middle of nowhere,we are not allowed. All the tracks are private and passengers cannot just go out here. No, the biggest question is probably even another one - why do we have to wait for 3 hours at all? The expiration of the current crew's working hours was obviously something that could have been planned, so why didn't they send the re-crew beforehand? 

Now we are sitting with other passengers and discussing this whole situation just like we do in Russia when something like this happens. Although, much more friendly. People are laughing and the atmosphere is overall more positive than it would have been in Russia. In Russia there would have for sure been at least one person who would have started to fight with the crew trying to convince them to go on and insulting them personally. There's at least my experience for example from a 12 hours delay of an Aeroflot flight. Here nobody blames the crew. Passengers are patient and understanding to them. I haven't heard a single accusation word in their direction.

One of our neighbors came up to us right after the announcement with the question "How do you like America now?".

There is no internet connection here, no mobile reception, we cannot go outside. At least, the dining car is working so we won't starve. Although I don't understand, why are they not distributing food for free and we still have to buy it. I wonder if there no regulations regarding that.

I'm afraid we won't get the whole picture. But I personally am of course very interested how did this happen. Is this a management fuck up? Or a procedure? Or a fuck up of a single person? Or maybe the combination of some them or all of them?

Update about 1 hour later. 

Just now we got an announcement: "Dear passengers, we got paramedics here on board. They just arrived being called by someone on this train. If you have called them please identify yourself." So right now the crew member is going through the train trying to find a person who called paramedics.

Looks like somebody just made a joke. 

One thing - so, somebody does have a cell phone reception here!

Update some time later

Finally we started moving. Approximately as truly said 3 hours later.

California Zephyr. Day 2. Part 2 and Denver.

June 15, 2014 9:21pm

It was a gorgeous day. First of all the landscape kept being amazing the whole way. We kept running from window to window and trying to make good photos. Reading didn't go today at all. 

As I said before we didn't plan to eat in the dining car and prepared the meals for the trip. But today we decided to have something warm for a dinner. It works here the following way. There are sleeping cars and the meals are included for those passengers. So, they first have to feed them. Then they go through the coach cars and take reservations from passengers here. The quantity is limited, so it might happen that there won't be place/food for everyone. And you cannot book it beforehand, you have to wait for them. We got very lucky and got almost the last place for a dinner at 5.30pm. Which was basically a little bit too early, but firstly there were no other options, and secondly there was a "long" 30 minutes stop planned in Denver which we wanted to use, because we were already tired of sitting and wanted to get some fresh air. 

Our dinner table we shared with a nice aged couple from North Carolina. We had a pleasant time with them and suddenly noticed that the train was already in Denver, about 30 minutes before schedule. We finished our meal quickly and hurried up outside glad we would have much time than we expected (obviously train wouldn't depart the schedule). So we went outside as we were and first of all came up to a train employee to inquire at what time should we be back. And here he told us that actually there was another train that we had to wait for to pick up some cars from it and that one was at least 1 hour late!!! But it was kind of not official information and he recommended us to ask at the station. So we went there and found an announcement there indeed, that the train 5, which is California Zephyr in the opposite direction, was only going to arrive at 7.40 and the lady at the counter confirmed that our train number 6 won't departure before we get the cars from number 6. So, suddenly we found ourselves in Denver with at least 1 hour time. We decided not to waste time and went to the city as we were. And we were almost in pajamas, just in some simple home clothes that you were on the train. 

We didn't go far, just took the closest  nice street from the train station and back. It was full of people, some of them dressed like for a carnival, street musicians, velo rikshas, horse carriages. There were also lots of nice restaurants and cafes, sculptures, interesting buildings. We really liked it there. 

After one hour we went back to the train station to check the status and found out that we had at least 1.5 hours more. This time we headed to the next park. It was the beautiful small park on the river bank, people were walking there, with kids and dogs. There was also kind of stage where a group of people looking like hippies or street artists gathered and showed their arts. They played drums and it was really pleasant to be there. So we stayed there until dark and went back to the train. Now we are here and they are telling that we probably won't departure next almost 2 hours. In total we're going to be about 6 hours late to Chicago. Which is a pity, cause we planned to visit a free concert in the park tomorrow evening and now it won't be possible anymore. But we are glad we got to see a little bit of Denver. 

About USA

Just wanted to save the information for our friends who might consider traveling to the US. 

1. Don't buy a T-mobile sim-card. IT is cheap, but it is also working really badly. IT's fine if you are staying in the big city, but you loose connection as soon as you happen to be in a small distance from one. Very often have only AT&T, which is being charged as roaming. 

2. Don't bother yourself with receiving an international driver's license. None of ours (neither the Russian one, nor the Austrian) were ever used. Even more, we couldn't add me as additional driver for a rental car once in Hawaii since we didn't bring my national license thinking that the international will be enough, but the company refused to take is as the document at all.

California Zephyr. Day 2. Part 1.

June 15, 2014 1:12pm

Sleeping was pretty comfortable, but very cold. Good that we had our blankets. During the night I woke up several times and the most fascinating views were the factories, which are highlighted and look like something space-alike. I also woke up when we were passing Salt Lake City, because I for some reason thought that would be nice to see. But we were too far away from the lake itself as well as from the city, so it was no point. 

There are by the way lots and lots of plugs everywhere in the train, so unlike our ferry trip I don't have to worry about saving the battery of my iphone, which I use to take photos. Today we are spending lots of time at the observation deck, because there is something to see. In the morning we were still in Utah and the landscape there was not very interesting. Mostly plain and very dry. But as soon as we entered the Colorado it becamce much more picturesque. Our route is lying almost all of the time along the Colorado river. The river changes it's width throughout the way. In the parts where it is wider, it is also very calm, but in the narrowest parts it is really wild. And the river is everywhere deep brown, not at all transparent. There are rafters riding along the river and some people bathing. Also there are mountains surrounding the river and they have beutiful colors, very juicy red/brown/almost orange sometimes. There are animals can be seen from time to time. Horse ranchos, cows, also we've seen several deers and a rabbit. So, if yesterday I was reading a lot of time, now I cannot make myself start reading yet. 

We also have stops, not very often and not very long, but we take any opportunity to go outside and stretch our legs. It turned out, that the windows of the train are a little bit tanned, so when we came out first time today our eyes were struck with the brightness. 

Another nice thing in the train is that today we have volunteers, who narrate along the way. They tell some things about the places we pass, history and geography. 

Trip home. Day 1. California Zephyr to Chicago.

June 14, 2014, 8:21pm

It is the first day of our long journey home. We are in the Amtrak train California Zephyr heading in to Chicago. This ride is a little bit more than 2 full days, so we still have the whole day and a half ahead. 

The train is not full, not at all overcrowded. We have coach seats located at the upper deck. Seats were reserved, but not assigned by numbers. Our friend Oleg brought us to the station in Emeryville, which is about 50 minutes drive from our former home. Since we were very concerned about getting good seats, we came more than an hour too early. There was literally nothing at that train station, but just the one good thing - a cafe serving our favorite coffee in US, Peet's. We like it much more than Starbucks though I suppose mostly not for the coffee, but because they play classical music there and the interior is a little bit old-style. 

So, about the train. As we boarded, we were the first. We picked up some places nicely located by the window and later even moved to other seats, closer to the observation deck. Observation deck is a car, where the seats are facing big panoramic windows. They are not so comfortable, so you don't feel like spending there your whole trip, but it is nice to go there from time to time to enjoy the landscape. At some point we passed the Lake Tahoe region. We were too far away from the lake itself, but saw some beautiful rivers and the rafters in them. Part of the road there are mountains around, sometimes empty fields with only green squares maintained by the watering systems on the wheels. Also we pass some small towns or just settlements of several houses from time to time. 

The seats are comfortable, you can lean the back as in the airplane but much more, there are also foot supports of two types - one on the seat in front of you, another is being pulled up from under your seat and makes the seating part itself longer, so that you can almost lie there. Overall, it's better than I expected. The train is not especially clean, just as the trains in Russia are, which means that the visible parts are clean, but as soon as you look somewhere where you normally shouldn't pay your attention at, you see that it wasn't touched for ages. There are enough restrooms, you don't ever have to wait in line. 

There is also a dining car, but we do'nt go there since we like always brought enough of our own snacks. 

It reminds to some point on our journey by ferry to Alaska, but not exactly. There since people had much more place to walk around, the atmosphere was somehow more social, people walked around all the time and talked to each other. Here we didn't make any real conversations yet. Let's see how it goes further. 

Denali national park

Denali national park is the "must see" if you are somewhere around Anchorage or Fairbanks. It is very different from any of the parks we visited before. The area which is accessible for the tourists is surrounded by tremendously beautiful mountains. I'm not sure if they are always covered with snow like they are now, but probably not or less. And this is an amazing view. You can start enjoying these mountains even before or without entering the national park. We saw them on our way from Anchorage. We were very lucky - the weather was so good, that we could even see the gorgeous Denali (or McKinley) mountain which is not at all always possible. We've explored the travelers advises before coming here and found out, that it's quite often that people don't get to see it even if they come to the park. So, once again, we were lucky. The sky was clear and blue, the sun was shining, but not too much, just enough to enjoy it. On this weird picture with the tree growing from my head the Denali mountain can be seen pretty good.

The are between these mountain chains is quite empty. There are no big trees, in many places no trees at all, only bushes and sometimes even only grass. That's the area can be seen through for a big distances. And that makes the main tourist attraction - the wildlife observation - possible. We have seen several caribou, 4 bears, some sheeps (even 2 lambs), 1 moose and a couple of interesting birds. But most of them from a big distance, so that they were hardly visible and recognizable even with the binoculars. 

There is a road that goes through the park. Earlier it was open for private vehicles. But at some point it was considered to be interrupting the wildlife too much and now you can't drive in with a personal car. There are tour buses and shuttles. We took the shuttle. It drives around 6 hours round-trip. When there is wildlife on the way, the driver stops the bus and let's you watch and take pictures. Strangely the buses themselves are very uncomfortable. The windows are separated in two parts horizontally, so as you sit, you have a non-transparent part right at the level of your eyes. Also, if you want to take pictures, you have to open the upper part, which is quite hard to open. And you cannot afford riding with the open window all the time - it's cold.

We did see a moose very close 2 times. But it was while we were driving state Alaska highway 3 from Anchorage the day before. First time the moose was crossing the street, so that I really had to stop the car not to bump into him. Another time there was one drinking water on the side if the road, very close. We parked our car and went out to watch him. He didn't react anyhow neither at our presence nor at cars passing by. He only jumped away when a big truck drove by with the horrible sound, but didn't run away, just stayed away from the road for some time and eventually stayed in the area.

Unlike other parks in US this one doesn't have any designated hiking trails. But you can hop off the bus anytime (and almost everywhere except one not very large area) and just go hiking any direction you want. 

Get rid of everything

Packed our things into this box and will send it directly to Austria.

We're going to live with only two carry-on suit cases for the next month in out trip. 

Last days

Today is Sunday, and we are leaving next Saturday, June 14th. Just 5.5 days left. We are very excited.

Yesterday we had our Farewell party. Lots of friends came, almost everybody whom we expected to see. We were lazy and didn't cook anything at all. Just bought some snacks, friends also brought some snacks and we also ordered pizza. Ended up with lots of food like always, so no need to cook today:) Also it's almost impossible anymore. We have already gave away/sold most of our kitchen staff as well as all other things we had. It went very efficient with craigslist.com and also with one of the local russian facebook groups. Today we put big signs "moving sale" all around the complex to sell the rest. It's only 3pm yet, but we have already got rid of the most of the things. All day people were coming. Very different people. Once two indian couples came together, once a black women looking and behaving like Whopi Goldberg, another time an aged man from Iran. Once a young boy came, maybe 10 years old or even 8. He didn't buy anything, just wondered around and asked for our boxes:) That said, this turned out to be fun.
 

Diary 7

May 18, 2014, 8.29pm Alaskan time

So the last part of our trip started after we made just a very short stop, about 30 minutes(for the ship, which means 15 minutes for passengers to go out) in Petersburg. The town seemed to be very nice and cosy, but we didn't have a chance to get to know it well, the downtown was somewhere else, not near the ferry terminal again. 

In Petersburg some more people got on the boat and now our Solarium is pretty crowded. It wouldn't bother us too much, but just near us there is a group of teenagers based now. They are obviously loud and not very respectful. But it's only one night left, even less, we arrive to Juneau at 3am.

We also saw a big group of whales just now, I even made some photos and videos of them.

I don't think I'm going to write more, it is the specific type of this ferry trip that allows you to see lots of things, experience a lot while having enough time to write about it. 

Diary 6

May 18, 2014, 4.14pm Alaskan time

We just took off from the port of Wrangell, just another small town on our way to Juneau. This one doesn't have a cruise ship terminal, so it looked much more simple than the Ketchikan. We only had 1 hour there (for the vessel and 30 minutes for passengers to go out). 

After about 15 minutes passed from taking off suddenly a very strong wind started. We anyway were informed already by the locals, that we are exceptionally lucky to have that good weather throughout our trip. Somebody told us how he was going the same way when it was raining cats and dogs, so that everybody at the deck had to move to the further most wall of the Solarium and still got wet. Now I observe safely from our "bedroom" how the tents are being moved quite violently by the wind. Some of them are attached to the floor with the tape, but there is one right before us, which is not and it really looks like it's going to fly away. IT's inhabitants sit inside and look a little bit nervous.

Diary 5

May 18, 2014, 1.23pm Alaskan time

We were just observing some whales. It was not the first time we saw them. First time we made a whale watching tour in Hawai. It was very impressive for us, none of us have done this before. Second time we went to see them in Monterei together with my husband's visit in April 2014. And this time we are not even doing a whale-watching tour, whales are just in the same waters where we are:) That is the charm of the ferry trip - you are using the public transportation and at the same time having a wonderful opportunity to see the most beautiful places from the best observation point. Parents have left their binoculares to us and it is was an amazing idea. We spend many time standing on the deck and watching the area we are passing by in the binoculares. We were hoping to see some wildlife at the land, bears and so on, but failed so far. Hope to see them later. 

Also I wanted to tell more about our ship. We have pretty a choice of places to spend time here. There is an observation deck, that looks like a movie theater located at the front part of the vessel, so you can sit there and look straight forward as the ship goes. There is also a lounge with chairs and some tables for those who, like us don't have a cabin, but unlike us don't want to sleep outside. We even have a real movie theater, a small one, maybe for 20 places, where they demonstrate something from time to time. Mostly some educating movies about Alaska.

As for the facilities, there are public showers and quite in a good condition. I was surprised, but even though there are only 3 of them (for women and the same number for men) they are never occupied fully, so there is never a line. They are not luxury, but nice and clean. 

Diary 4

May 18th, 2014, 9.14am Alaskan time

We just took off from our first stop, the port of Ketchikan. We had 1.45 hours there and of courses couldn't refuse ourselves in the pleasure of going outside and step on the ground of Alaska for our first time. WE didn't plan the time very smartly though and were almost late for boarding back. Firstly we didn't count that the downtown would be so far away from Ferry Terminal and it turned out that it was about 30 minutes by foot one way, and on the way there we didn't hurry, we were looking around, making pictures and so on. So when we came there we realized very soon that we have to start our walk back. At some point it was obvious that we were not able to make it in time, so we just came up to the closest car staying at the intersection and asked if the guy could have take us to the Ferry Terminal. Luckily he didn't mind to do it and we were right in time. 

That's why we actually didn't see a lot of Ketchikan. What we saw was one big street along the oceanside, a little bit further mountains and between the ocean and the mountains a system of the wooden bridge-like streets, partly ladders, that connect houses with each other. Downtown is located near by the Cruise ships Terminal (or more likely vise versa) and there were 3 huge cruise ships right at the time. But it wasn't that crowded as we were expecting to see. Maybe it is too early for the tourist season yet, or maybe only the very small part of the passengers stepped off to the shore.

There was even some cell phone reception, but no T-mobile. IT's funny how we found the worst network to have here in USA:) 

Also we noticed today that actually most of the people we met here on the ferry are americans. Actually we haven't meet a single tourist from elsewhere so far. That's why we are so interesting for them:) 

Lots of these people are on vacation, like we are, but some are going there for work or even moving to live there.  For them it's the better way to move - you don't have to pay for the transportation of your households, you just load your car with them and take the car to the vessel with you.

We have some new fellow-passengers boarded in Ketchikan, so now it's more crowded in the Solarium, but still very nice.

We're going to have two more stops today, not so long, less than an hour each. Most likely we're going to go to the shore then as well, but maybe not trying to make such a challenging walk:) Let's see.

Diary 3

May 17th, 2014, 4.44pm Alaskan time

It works very interesting here. At one place of the deck there are people wearing winter clothes, I am sitting at our "bedroom" in a light pullover and couple of meters from me in the middle of the deck between the tents there are two guys even not wearing T-shirts. IT's because they were lucky to find a spot where they are fully protected from the wind, but getting all the sun. I wonder if they're going to turn red tomorrow, the sun is quite strong here. 

Some time ago we passed a town on our way. It's name was Belle-belle. It was a bog attraction, many people gathered on the deck to see it, take pictures. It becomes something interesting to see a small town in the middle of nowhere, if you haven't seen any living area the whole day before. We are now more than a day on the ship.

Diary 2

May 17th, 2014, 8.57am Alaskan time

We woke up pretty early today, around half past 4 in the morning. Sleeping was decent though. The only thing that bothered a little bit was the sound made by the engine. Apart from that all the conditions were satisfactory. Our sleeping bags turned out to be a very good idea - one of our fellow-travelers, who established his place in the deepest corner of the Solarium told that he was freezing during the night, and we were warm at our border place. Although I saw some people taking their things and going somewhere in the night or in the early morning. Later we saw them sleeping n one of the covered halls.

The cafeteria here works 24 hours. We haven't eaten there yet, we have enough of our own fodd with us. We only go there to take some hot water for the tea or ofr an instant oatmeal. We were even lucky to find one without any additional artificial ingridients in the local Bellingham shop. Also we bought cofee a couple of times in the cafeteria. It seems to me pretty expensive though, 4.75 for a medium-size latte or Cappucino. I might be mixing things up, but I think you can buy a large one in Starbucks for the same price. 

Right now we are laying on the upper deck on the lying chairs, reading and looking around. The Marine Highway, which we are driving through goes between the small islands and strips of land. So we always see land on both sides. Mostly it is mountains and forests. From time to time some small boats pass by. Very early in the morning it was very foggy. We war literally driving into the milk. At that point our vessel started to produce the loud sound of fog-alarm every couple of minutes or even more often. Obviously to inform other possible traffic members of our existence. There was also a person sent to the very front point of the ship. The guy was looking forward all the time, with no tools, just with his own eyes. 

Eventually the fog went away and now the air is clear around us. The sky is blue and the sun is shining, but there are some clouds. Now it is no very cold, in the sun it is even nice and warm. 

About 30 minutes ago there was an announcement, that the car deck is open to visit. We also went to have a look, even though we don't have a car there. What we saw was really pleasant for our eyes:) It turned out that that was also the time for pet owners to walk them on the car deck. There were many different dogs and the owners were walking with them in the small open area and also between cars. As soon as the pet did it's things, the owners had paper and sanitizer and poo-bags to clean up. WE understood, that mid-sized and big dogs are not allowed to be anywhere except from this car deck and some other designated place, that we haven't seen yet. So, they mostly stay in the cars and the owners have 3 times a day a chance to walk them. We have 2 small dogs in our Solarium, obviously it is allowed to bring the dogs of that size with you everywhere. 

Diary 1

May 16, 2014, 19.57 Alaskan time.

I am sitting in a "Solarium" deck of a Ferry boat traveling from Bellingham, WASHINGTON to Juneau, ALASKA. For me it is the second time traveling by sea. First time was 12 years ago and it was a trip on the river Volga. From then I remember what an amazing feeling it is to be on a ship for several days without being able to go out and actually without any option to change anything. For several days you are not planning anything, not taking any decisions, you are even without connection to the land. It was like this back then and it is surprisingly now again. There is no internet on the vessel, we were recommended to switch our cell phones to the airplane mode, because there is anyway almost no connection and if there is some, there is a big chance that it's going to be a canadian network and consequently might come out very expensive. That is fine and even exciting. We are not allowed to drink alcohol anywhere except the bar (and there also not ours, but the one we buy there). But since we didn't know about that when preparing we bought 2 bottles of wine and are secretly drinking it now from the plastic cups hoping that nobody will check what exactly we have in our cups:) There are not too many people aboard. We came to the very beginning of the boarding. As I said we don't have a cabin, we are staying at the "Solarium" deck. That is basically just the upper deck of the vessel and a part of it is a covered from 3 sides space slightly heated. IT's still not as hot as in a solarium, but there is no wind coming inside, so you can feel quite comfortable wearing normal clothes. My husband is right now chatting with one of our new acquiantances. We've been here only for 3 hours, but already met several people. It happens somehow very easily here, people just start to talk to each other and after some time you don't happen to make any short distance across the ship not meeting somebody you know already. We are explaining our russian-austrian business again and again, because what do you really talk about with the strangers if not about where is everybody from?

To get here we got up at 5.30am today. Took our rental car that we picked up exactly one week ago in the San Jose airport after selling our own car. Drove to San Jose airport, gave the car back and took the plane to Seattle. San Jose is very close to our current "home", just about 15 minutes and mostly no traffic. It's call "The Silicon Valley Airport". It is small and nice. So, it took us almost 2 hours to get to Seattle by plane where we have already booked an airport Shuttle to the Bellingham, where the Ferry trip was to start from. We were trying to find any other options to get there, but ended up with that shuttle as the most safe, affordable and relevant option. Others were to find a ride (it failed, it doesn't work so good here as the Mitfahrgelegenheit.de in Europe) and some other options using different public transportation types, with step-overs and so on. So, this shuttle was really the best option. The bus was comfortable and even had Restrooms in it! It was only half-full and the driver was an extremely funny person. He had a voice like some Hollywood star, we couldn't recall which exactly, and the way he spoke was also like of some comic. He recommended us one cafe in Bellingham, when we told that we had to wait for the departure for several hours. We were not going to go there, it seemed weird to us to follow the recommendation of somebody working in the travel industry. You tend to think that they are all bound together and just advertising each other businises. But eventually we got exactly to that cafe and it turned out to be indeed a very nice place with the cozy outside area. Bellingham, or, better to say, the old town of it, which is located near to the cruise and  ferry terminal is a small beautiful european-style part of town, where you enjoy just wandering around and sitting in a cafe. Funny thing - I don't know why, but just within 5 minutes walking distance we saw about 10 hair-dressing saloons there. Practically at least each 3rd building had one. 

So, after having a good lunch in the "Starluck's" and shopping in the nearest and probably only one supermarket to obtain some food for our trip (including wine) we arrived to the Ferry Terminal. We boarded pretty quickly and took the very good location on the deck. We claimed two lying chairs and placed them just on the border between the covered zone and the open space. During the day, when we just arrived, it was pretty warm here. Now it got colder and we just moved them deeper into the covered area still being able to enjoy good view. 

There are not too many people on the deck, just enough not too feel alone, but there is plenty of space to have some kind of privacy. There are also severals tents on the open part of the deck. I wonder how is it inside - from outside they are being moved all the time by the wind. Lots of people are hanging out in the bar on in the cafeteria or in one of the covered sitting areas with comfortable chairs and plugs for devices/computers. Some have put on lots of layers and are walking around the ship, making pictures, chatting with each other. Along with me there are several people in the "Solarium" reading or taking a nap, or just sitting and enjoying. Right now there is some big city on our right side, lots of lights, that is most likely Canada.

The atmosphere on the vessel is calm, friendly and joyful. 

 

Travel diary

Next several posts are going to be my travel notes made on the ferry from Bellingham to Juneau. They are made with an iPhone and a portable keyboard and may contain much more mistakes and typos than normal... Sorry for that!

One new sad founding about job opportuinities for me in Austria

In Austria we will live in Altach, which is very close to the Swiss border. My husband and any other Austrian can work in Switzerland and the job market is even more promising there and the salaries are higher. So, he was sure, that I will also have that option. But now, when we actually started to explore the topic, I found out, that I won't be allowed to work there. Only in Austria. Which cuts a huge part of space for my search. That's life.

Food and restaurants

We don't go out very often to eat, but if we do than it's most likely an Asian place. First place definitely goes to Thai, then Japanese/Chinese, then all others. There are just tons of them, everywhere and they are often very affordable. One of the first places we found was very close to our first accommodation - Merit. It is a nice place and the food is really good. The service seemed to us too pushy back then. Later we learned that it's just the way it is here. In Russia as well as in Europe the waiter tries to be (or he just is?) invisible. He doesn't come too often, sometimes even when you need him. When you have finished and want to leave the place already they make you wait. Here they come up to your table couple of times, ask you if everything is alright (sometimes not really caring that you are chewing right at that moment and cannot answer), bring the bill even before you finished your eating. We will have to adjust when we go back to Europe. One very nice thing here - always, just as soon as you sit they bring you water and keep your glass full throughout your meal. That is really a very good tradition. The water is normally with ice though, but you can always ask to bring it without ice.
As for the non-Asian places most of all we like Black Angus. We have one in Sunnyvale just 10 minutes from our place (by car, everything is here by car...) and almost never go there by ourselves. First our new Russian friends (the husband is my husband's colleague) brought us there to show us a good steak place. And now we bring there every our guest for the same reason. We have actually only been to one other steakhouse and didn't like that one. So, maybe there are better places but we stuck to Black Angus and are totally fine with it:) This week we have visitors from Russia again and are going to bring them there too:)
We have only watched "Big Bang Theory" once and it was in the plane on our way to US. But we learned from there that there is the Cheesecake Factory and got an idea to try it. Once we got there we were quite surprised to find out that this is not at all a bakery, but a big restaurant with all sorts of food. And even more, that the cheesecakes there are not at all the best part, they look very attractive, but they are actually not at all so good. They are huge and extremely sweet. Each time we went there we were reducing our consumption of cheesecakes, last time we only ordered one cheesecake for two of us and didn't even eat it out. Our favorite is the Teriyaki Chicken!
There are also lots of fast-foods here obviously. We visited them very rarely, but when we did the choice was almost each time for the Asian again.
From the first day we came I was my husband to go to McDonald's. Not that I am a very big fan, but I was just extremely curious if there any difference. Couple of weeks ago I got lucky. We were driving from South California home, were already very tired and hungry, couldn't find anything on our way for a very long time and eventually reached the food stop where there was a McDonald's:) Well.... absolutely the same tastes of a Big Mac, fries and chicken McNuggets that I recall from my youth:)

Regarding the food choices here generally. The variety here is enormous. You can keep any style of eating you prefer. You can eat extremely healthy as well as extremely unhealthy. The choice of fruits and vegetables is big here throughout the year. In Summer it is just amazing. We found several products that matched our expectation and bought the again and again pretty much the whole time. For example the only 3 types of cereals without sugar, cottage cheese from Russian shop (still not that good as in Russia), vegetables and fruits from the Sunnyvale Farmers' market, C.J. Olsen Cherries, Felipe's Market or some of the supermarkets.
My husband is missing a good bread and cheese here. We found some places to buy some bread and cheese but the variety and quality are still far from what he is used to have in Austria.
There is nothing that I miss here comparing to Austria. I miss cottage cheese from Russia and that's pretty much it. All the rest Russian specialities you may buy in one of the Russian shops or eat in a Russian restaurant (we haven't tried any of them by the way, but I've heard from some friends that there are at least one decent in our area).

When we're going to move to Austria, we'll have to get used again that we don't have that much of eating places at all and much less variety. There is one sushi "network" around - Manga. One restaurant in Bregenz (20km) and another in Feldkirch(15km). My husband says there are a couple of Chinese but I haven't seen them during my living there:) Let's see:)
Anyhow, it's much easier to travel quickly to Moscow from Austria to enjoy Taras Bulba or Tanuki than from US:)) 

Restaurant screwed up... the food was very good though

Yesterday we dined with our friends in an interesting restaurant in Palo Alto. It is a Jewish one, I have never been to Jewish restaurants before and was curious. This is the place: http://orenshummus.com/. The restaurant was full, we had to wait around half an hour. Finally we were seated and had a great dinner including obviously hummus. When we finished we had to wait for the bill, which is actually very uncommon here. Normally the bill is being brought right away, sometimes even when you didn't finish eating. We were stunned by it at the beginning and haven't yet got used to it even after almost a year here. So, this place was an exception, we had to catch the waiter and ask for the bill. Finally he brought the folder, we opened it and.... found the other person's credit card there!!!! They brought us someone else's bill with someone else's credit card in it!!!!

But the food was really good, so we might go there again if we find time in our tight schedule:)))) 

Speedy visa

It took them.... 3 working days to issue my Austrian Visa! We applied last Friday in Los Angeles and this morning it was already delivered to us. I don't even know whom to appreciate for this - austrians or americans, but it is really amazing:)

After a long silence

I don't really know why, but I just didn't feel like writing even to my Russian blog, not talking about the English one. Maybe I was so mentally exhausted by all the situation, by all troubles I have had to go here through. And now something is changing again. We are planning our move back to Austria (for me it's not totally "back", only to some point). We already have most of the tickets and most of the details of our trip planned. We just had to do it, because we had to provide the tickets to the Austrian embassy showing that we are flying to Austria. Flying together also helped us to avoid paying the visa application fee which is kind of nice. Austrian embassy is located in Los Angles, so we had to do this trip last Friday. It is my second experience of applying for a visa in a foreign country embassy (first was US embassy in Austria) and I am again astonished. How is it possible, that when I was applying for an Austrian visa, the same type as now, in the Austrian embassy in Moscow I had to struggle with that bureaucracy and here everything went smooth and easy? Why were the employee of the embassy in Moscow so rough and angry with me and the employee in Los Angeles so nice, friendly and helpful? I'm really starting to get used to a civilized way of solving problems. USCIS, the authority that issued my work authorization was probably an exception or maybe my case was an exception. In all other situations I only see (and here from my fellow-immigrant friends) positive examples of interaction with the authorities abroad. I hope I will never have to deal with authorities in Russia again.

As for the rest. Our overall impression of the US (or better to say of California, because as far as I understand the state of things may vary a lot from state to state) is very good. It is a very nice place to live. I totally understand those who say that they are very happy that they got to move here. Many things are organized really good here, it is the place where you may live and enjoy life. Of course that is all given that you have a job or some other stable source of income.
What I really like here is traffic conditions. Roads are broad, each lane itself is wide. Traffic lights and signs are organized smartly. I'm totally fascinated with such a measure of reducing the traffic as Carpool lane (it is the lane which is only available for vehicles with 2 or more persons in it during the rush hours). I am also impressed by the driving style in California. People are polite to each other!!! If you want to change your lane and start to blink they let you do it!! Somebody who like me live in Moscow the whole life would understand how shocked I was when I saw it.
Also the infrastructure is great here. You can buy everything you want almost anytime, in the evening, in the night, on weekend. Things are being solved quickly, pay and go, no need to arrange appointments, wait etc. Of course, it's not always and everywhere like this, but for the majority of things.

It is only our personal situation that really makes it senseless for us to stay here in the US and prefer to go to live to Austria. If I would have to choose between Russia and US I wouldn't have any single doubt about it.

I was lucky enough to find a perfect job for my situation. I have great working hours, there is no stress and pressure at all (I have never had such not-stressful job in my whole life!!!), my colleagues are mostly nice, I'm being paid surprisingly good, I'm pretty free to take day-offs.
Thanks to this we were able to visit a lot of things around. Actually we have been (or going to visit before our departure from US) more places than many people who have been living here for many years. But it is of course partly because of the short-term nature of our stay here. We know that we have time limits that's why we use possibilities as much as possible.

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