Basically Liza's dad was ill and we needed to go to her home town of Chelyabinsk to see them. You can't fly directly there from Western Europe (it's only like 1.5m people after all) so the best bet is to fly to Yekaterinberg which is just three hours down the motorway. and available from London and a few other places. In the end we found a flight from Barcelona so we decided that we would book that one... we would go to Barcelona a couple of days early on the train, take it leisurely you know.
Before you go to Russia you need a visa which I normally get from the visa office in London, but there is one in Lisbon too so we thought we would use that one. We rang three times to check it would be all ok and they said it was fine. So we were ready to go and looking forward to exploring Barcelona etc
Anyway, a week or before trip we went to the visa place and they flat out refused to issue a visa cos I was English but in Portugal. We spent a day arguing with them but no use, we told them they'd said before that it wasn't a problem and they said "Yeah, they said the wrong thing". It got quite heated but nothing could be done.
So we packed super fast and next day flew to London and went straight to the visa office there hoping they could issue a visa quickly in the five days we had. We spent the week in London getting super fucked up (a mistake in hindsight) and enjoyed it well enough, we did get the visa in time so we bought a flight to Barcelona in time to catch the flight to Yek'burg.
On the day before we flew we ended up partying all night (a big mistake in hindsight) and then got a taxi to the airport at 8am, we caught the flight to Barcelona and all was good. We had like four hours to kill there so we got really drunk (a very big mistake) and we were sitting there chilling when Liza suddenly said "Wait a minute, that's our flight, it's taking off now" and we rushed there but we missed it. In our defence there were two confusing things - it wasn't the airline it said, it was a subcontractor, and when we bought the tickets they had the UK time not the Spanish for some reason. Anyway, we missed the flight.
That was a very bad moment, Liza was crying and walking round the airport saying "My dad has cancer" and every Spanish person who was supposed to help acted like a total cunt. There was no wifi, no internet room, there was no way to figure things out. Eventually this woman at the info desk said "There is another flight to Yek'burg in an hour, queue there and you can get on that" so we thought she'd done something and we queued up and tried to get on and then we got to the front and explained that the woman from the airport had said we could get on. But it was bullshit and they said "What are you on about? Fuck off". So we went back to the airport and cried some more while getting unbelievably drunk.
Finally we found the next flight to Y was in two days and we bought another ticket for 800 euros - Turkish airlines via Istanbul. We managed to book a hotel which was really nice and we got a cab there. When we got there the cab said 20 on the meter but - I swear to God - the guy pushed a button and it flipped over and suddenly said 40 euros. I was thinkinkg, we're paying 60 euros to stay in a hotel but the ten minute ride there cost almost as much.
The hotel was lovely but it was late now and there was no food or anything available. We were like the walking dead (especially Liza, she was like a zombie, upright but dead inside). The guy said there is an Argentine restaurant down the road that might be open so we walked down and found it. Liza sort of slumped on the table and just swept all the cutlery on to the floor. The guy picked it up and changed it and she just did it again straight away. Eventually we ate, she asked for some ketchup and I found one of those red squeezy bottles with a white top... I passed it to her and she upended and started drinking it from the bottle, she had no idea what was happening. Somehow we got through the meal and I kinda propelled her back to the hotel, standing but needing me to push her to move.
In the (lovely) hotel we lay down for what seemed like two hours and slept until early morning... phone rang and it was the desk and the guy said "You gotta go your room is booked for 10am so you got twenty minutes to get out". I asked to book another room but he claimed the place was full - fuck off basically.
We sat in the lobby ringing other places, found another hotel that was just down the road. It was the worst hotel I've ever seen, basically a huge box with 4000 rooms over looking the motorway. The only food they had was microwaved pizza and there was nowhere anywhere nearby to get more food.
Anyway, next afternoon we went to catch our flight... they said "There's some bad news, the plane is a bit late and you will miss your connection in Istanbul". Fair enough the airline was great, they said they will put us in a hotel and fly us to Russia next day, no extra cost. And the flight was cool, food nice etc
We got to Istanbul... walked inside to the desk. They said if you're staying you need a visa - obviously we didn't have one cos we were supposed to just change. Turns out a Turkish visa is basically just an add-on to make some money. You just have to queue up and cough twenty euros... but they only take cash and there is no machine. We only have 25 euros between us but it turned out (thank fuck) that Liza didn't have to get one cos she has a Russian passport.
Anyway, we got through and again, total contrast to Barcelona, every Turk we met was lovely, we had a laugh with some soldiers having a fag in the airport etc but still we had to wait three hours for a coach to take everyone who missed the connection to a hotel. It was a great hotel though, five stars and they said cos our flight wasn't leaving until midnight tomorrow we could have breakfast, lunch and dinner there for free.
We get back to the hotel and then Liza starts getting all these messages. We were supposed to dj in Chelyabinsk but we missed the date - she'd messaged the guy but he hadn't read it and now loads of her school friends were saying "Hey we're at the bar, where are you?" - in a hotel on the outskirts of Istanbul I think...
So yeah we got through the next day and stuff but our bodyclocks were all fucked and we couldn't sleep. Finally we got the flight at midnight, landed at Yekaterinburg at like 7am and then waited for her brother to drive us the three hours back to Chelyabinsk... completely shattered.
Rest of the trip was ok though I guess.
