Arrival in St. Petersburg! - Fri, Apr 4

I arrived in St. Petersburg and had a nice flight. All the connections were good and my bags made it through just fine. It’s always a praise when the bags (and I) make it! I had Vica, a young lady I hired that was a graduate of a transition home, meet me and make arrangements for a taxi. The driver was a young man named Igor who brought his six year old son with him. I showed him how I could pull off my finger! He was entertained! In English he asked, “Please do this one more time” at his dad’s encouragement!

The first night I stayed at a transition home and slept on the couch. It was closer to the airport as I had to leave the next morning for a flight to Rostov-On-Don. The “On-Don” means “on the river named Don”. There is another Rostov in Russia and this phrase is used to distinguish between the two cities.

My flight the next morning was my first domestic flight in Russia. I flew an airline named S7 Airlines. The “S” stands for Siberian. I was worried that I would be able to make the connection in Moscow without a translator. I had a two-hour layover there so this was plenty of time. I found the airport easy to navigate as signs were in Russian and English. It was a nice flight on a Boeing aircraft; however there were no video screens to play the safety briefing. The stewardess would stand in the aisle and show you how to fasten your seatbelt, put on your oxygen mask, and did their hand jive motions to show where the exits were. It’s how I remember airlines doing these safety briefings 25 years ago.

On the afternoon of April 5th I arrive in Rostov, again with all my bags in tow! My son Sergey and his girlfriend Tanya met me at the airport. His girlfriend also speaks English, but I probably talked too fast at times for her to completely understand me. Sergey had made arrangement s for a taxi for the 15 minute ride to his apartment. I got settled and we visited a bit. I had been worried about getting from Dallas all the way to Rostov-On-Don, near the northern part of the Black Sea on a Journey that started for me on Thursday and ended on Saturday afternoon. God had made all things work out!