FLY TO IRKUTSK - ИРКУТСК

I awoke at 3:30 AM. Jet lag. 3:35. Sleep, try to sleep…3:40…sleep, close your eyes…sleep…3:45. I wasn't slated to go to the airport to help load the plane, but since I was up, I decided to go. Robbie, Peter, Lars and myself all met in the lobby and left for the airport at 5:30 AM. We headed to the terminal first to have some coffee and a bite to eat. Small pieces of bread with either salami, salmon or salmon roe on it. I like the roe, myself. Coffee was terrible, but I am getting used to it.

We went back to the van and drove over to the International Cargo area. Where we waited. Then we were told that they needed our passports. Why? We weren't leaving Russia, just flying to another city. So we gave them to them. Protocol, I told myself. Flexing their power.

We waited some more. For nearly an hour. Finally, we were told that they were going to weigh the gear, and we could watch if we wished. The gear had already been weighed by Peter. Protocol. We agreed, as if we had any choice in the matter, and walked to this derelict warehouse that had other cargo in it. They unloaded our gear and proceeded to weigh each piece on this scale that probably dated back to WWII. Maybe WWI. I mentioned to Robbie that at least it wasn't raining. Then, it started to drizzle. After an hour, they finally finished, and we went back to the van- to wait some more. Eventually, they gave us back our passports and we were allowed to drive to our plane. By this point, it was absolutely pouring rain. Mischa, our Russian "loadmaster" started loading the gear into the cargo bays. Then he unloaded it. Then put it back. It didn't look like we were going to make our noon departure. Hell, at this rate, we'd be lucky to leave today. After several attempts, the gear finally fit, but not before several rows of seats were removed from the back of the plane. There was a lot of gear on that plane, and over 30 passengers would be in it as well. We also had to put all of our luggage on top of the gear.

We loaded our luggage onto the plane and chose some seats. Then we headed back to the terminal to meet up with the rest of the crew, who had already been there for 3 hours. Once again, we had to surrender our passports to receive- boarding passes? Okay, more protocol. I bought some postcards. We waited. We went to another room and waited some more, then finally loaded a bus and were driven out to our waiting jet. We boarded the cargo-laden aircraft, settled into our seats and the pilot started the engines. We taxied our way toward the runway, and pulled into position. The pilots were obviously going through their checks. The engines then started spooling up, louder and louder, then the pilot released the brakes. We started rolling down the runway, slowly picking up speed. The plane started to vibrate. The nose lifted, and after what seemed an eternity, we were airborne, with not much runway to spare. A lot of people were quite relieved.

We were originally supposed to leave a noon, but it was now 2 PM. Not too bad considering.

We broke out of the clouds and there was the sun! Hadn't seen that in quite a while. Shortly after leveling off, the flight attendants served dinner. I was starved- we hadn't eaten since the salmon roe and salami toast at 6 AM. Well, the meal was nothing to write home about, but at least it was filling.

The flight was to take about 5 hours, so some people napped, others drank beer and vodka. I wrote some postcards. One of our interpreters is a girl name Irina, she is from Moscow. She's a lot of help, for obvious reasons. I always try to learn the local language, so she has been great help. As if the language barrier is not enough, the Russians also have a completely different alphabet. Theirs consists of 33 characters, and only 6 are the same as ours. I spent most of the flight going over the letters, learning what they mean. I already know a few letters, but with her help, I know the entire alphabet now. It really helps to know the alphabet, as everything is obviously written using Russian letters. And even though the words are Russian as well, it helps to be able to actually "read" the words. For instance, an easy Russian word is spelled "PECTOPAH" which is pronounced "RESTORAN" and, yes, it means "restaurant." My name is KOCMO in Russian. Click here to see an airport sign in both letters. Here are a few examples of how different the letters are- The Russian "F" looks like this- "Ф." The Russian "J"- "Ж." As you can see, the letters are extremely different, but with practice, you can start reading. I find it very interesting.

We landed in Irkutsk at 9:30; we lost 3 more hours, now 13 hours ahead of EST. Some serious time-zone changes.

We all loaded into a 15-passenger bus and headed to the hotel. It was short drive, and the hotel looked great. No elevators, though. 3 floors, so not too bad. The hotel also had Internet access, hooray! Hopefully, it worked. We were told that we couldn't get it tonight, however, as the technicians were not there. In the morning, they said. We had dinner, it was really bad, but the beer was good, as was my cabbage soup with a dollop of sour cream. We headed to the gig to see how things were going. A short drive through Irkutsk and we were there. Again, this city was crumbling, but there did seem to be more new construction than I had seen in any of the other cities so far.

We walked through a mall to get into the venue, and were we pleasantly surprised- the stage, the lights, the sound- all perfect! We were stunned. The promoter and crew couldn't seem to do enough to help us. We made some minor changes, Robbie checked out the dressing rooms and we left to go back to the hotel.