I’ve been planning my trip to Russia for the whole night today. Until about 6:00am or so. There are so many variables involved that I had some pretty tough time putting it all together.
And the worst thing in this planning is that I depend on a lot of people. Before making any decision, I had to approve it with my wife, with my father, and with my mother. THe problem is in time zones. The time difference between me and my wife is 5 hours, with my father – 2 hours, with my mother – 0 hours.
Another problem is transportation. There are no direct flights between a couple of places that I’ll be visiting. Most of the flights involve Moscow, which is way too expensive and time consuming. At least, I figured that we won’t be taking any trains. The conditions are too tough for the little kid, the distances are too large, and the price difference with planes – all make trains not a viable alternative.
Yet another problem is paperwork. I am waiting now for Olga’s pink slip to arrive, but Immigration department in Nicosia is moving to another building, so there are pretty good chances for me to leave without this paper. If that will happen so, Olga will need to get a visa to come back to Cyprus. That means – at least another two days in Moscow.
And there is also the lack of information. You just can’t plan everything a month ahead. Tickets’ information is available only at the last minute (although Avantix.ru was rather helpful in getting the idea), paperwork stuff is very dependant on luck, etc.
I haven’t yet started the trip, but I am already tired from it. We’ll see how it goes from now on. I’ll keep you posted.