Finally Here!

Well, I've finally made it to Ulan-Ude! And yes, there is indeed already snow here. Granted, it's on mountains that have a little elevation over the city, but still...Although according to the taxi driver who gave me a ride from the airport, they have a "very long fall" here, so maybe there's still a little hope.

Getting here went pretty smoothly, which was a good thing, considering everything that happened before I left the U.S. For those of you who I said goodbye to in mid-September, you may remember that I had quite a bit of trepidation about actually getting out by my scheduled departure date of September 18. Turned out, that was warranted, although the problem came not from the Russians, as expected, but from our very own Fellowship Office at the University of Illinois. It's a very long story, but in short they screwed up in a really spectacular fashion. Ever since then, I've been collecting horror stories about them from other people, so for the unaware, fi you ever have to deal with them, be very afraid. As a result of said screw-up and my own desire to attend a friend's wedding, I ended up leaving the U.S. on October 6, and just got to Ulan-Ude on the 9th.

I flew into Moscow and stayed there for a night before flying on to Ulan-Ude, so I got the inexpressible joy of taking a taxi all the way across town between the airport and my hostel twice in two days. The traffic there is so appalling, it took 5 hours to make the two trips. Pretty funny, considering that my flight from Chicago to Moscow took all of 9 1/2 hours. Although there was an excuse for one of the days - it was raining, and apparently Russians can't drive in the rain. OK, maybe that's a little harsh. Part of the airport was flooded, there was so much rain, but that's also very Russian. I think we passed 6 ender-benders on the way in, all of which caused traffic jams for a mile or so behind them. And in classic Russian fashion, instead of pulling over to the side of the road, they just stopped exactly where they were to wait for the police, who are hardly prompt. So the four lanes of traffic (1 1/2 of which were inevitably blocked by the accidents) that the drivers made in the road that was really only built for three lanes just oozed around the damaged cars ever so slowly and then sped up a little, until the logjam behind the next accident. It took 3 1/2 hours to go 25 miles.

I inflicted my jet-lagged self on fellow Russian history grad student Steven Jug my first night in Russia. We went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant not too far from Red Square (Mexican - Red Square, if you're thinking that these two things should not be anywhere near each other, you're right). I went there when I was here in 2002, and left after there was no wait staff to be seen for 20 minutes. The food was OK, although if it was an enchilada, I'm a frog. The real winner, though, was the decor, which I must have missed during my previous visit. You know those super-idealized posters of Native Americans that inevitably involve lots of beads, feather, fringed deerhide, long black hair blowing in the wind, and pastels? That's Mexican on Red Square. And then it turned 8:30. They played Madonna's greatest hits album straight through, and then a waitress dressed in a black tank top and hot pants with - wait for it - a suede gunbelt that looked like it might have been sold with a 6-year-old's Halloween costume kit but which was full of shot glasses came out and started offering tequila around. For those of you who know him, imagine the look (or studious lack thereof) on Steve's face.

Other than that little slice of the surreal, things have been really pretty uneventful. I'm here, settled in, de-jetlagged (14 hours of time difference!) and now trying to deal with all the paperwork surrounding getting myself registered here in Ulan-Ude and my visa extended. Once that's taken care of, I'm ready to plunge into the archives! So after months of waiting, it's finally here....