Day One : Travel

So we left. Goodbye Montreal and hello Russia! Actually it was a bit longer than saying this. No wait, it was a lot longer :)
The flight to St-Petersburg took us a total of 9 hours of flying. We left at 5:30pm on Saturday July 23rd and landed on Sunday July 24th at 6am in Frankfurt. But our 6am in Frankfurt is 12am in Montreal. So we were flying almost seven hours. We boarded the plane after an exhaustive search of my stuff at airport security. The girl named Fatima confiscated my jar of sealed peanut butter I bought for Russia (they don't have it there!). She obviously was tempted by the Whipped Kraft Peanut Butter. A whole 750g! Good for her. She also needed sunscreen so I said goodbye to my Ombrelle SPF60 expensive sunscreen. Dad had his lighter confiscated. But he said he will buy a new one when we get back.
The humonguous plane was nice, but really really cold. The lovely stewardesses announced that the temperature will be held at 18 degrees C. Everyone had blankets. We had aboard entertainmentm these little screens with movies and music. I had time to watch a couple, but I mostly focused my time on trying to sleep. And failed at it :) Dad had lots of sleep though! 

Upon our arrival in Frankfurt we were surprised to see that it was 13 degrees and rainy outside. I had a sweater, but Dad was really cold at the airport. We waited around there for about two hours for our connexting flight. It was sooo long! Just for comparison, we were four hours early for our flight from Montreal and we had lots of time to walk around, eat and relax. No pressure, just kinda.. you know, vacation :) But the Frankfurt airport is empty. As in there are expensive stores, empty spaces and a business-like feel to it. Clean, impersonal. And balls out expensive. A coffee cost us almost 7$.
So we waited around, a little bored, tried reading the newspapers :)

These were some lounge chairs. They were there I guess for people to catch up on some sleep while waiting for the flights. The bottom picture was Dad's introduction to digital cameras :)

In the Montrea airport there was no way to go outside for a smoke after you have passed security. But the Frankfurt airport offered its patrons a "Smoking Zone" Can you see Dad's fabulous posing skills? (For those who dont know him, he is on the right and is making a funny face)

 It is kinda strange to take pictures of a handicapped bathroom in an airport and yes I have been stared at by the cleaning ladies. But would you look at this? Dad called this the Cirque du Soleil :P
But all in all, I can see here a very efficient way to help handicapped people onto a toilet bowl. The rope actually moves on these small rails, so the person can grip it, pull herself up, walk and sit down on the seat!

And when the time came we boarded the plane to St-Petersburg.

This was the view from my seat. I was lucky enough to get windowseats! We left Frankfurt at 8:40am and flew 2:10 hours to St-Petersburg to land at 13:00 there.

We were overwhelmed by the assortment of German reading! We could not help ourselves :P

In the previous flight, around an hour and a half before landing, Dad woke up and started noisily talking and exploring his personnal movie and music screen. We stumbled upon a set of GPS maps that told us our altitude, positionning and plane speed. Also it told us the miles left to destination... Dad was very happy with this. He had the GPS one on his screen and applauded and cheered everytime the small plane moved a centimeter on the grid. But the disappointment when we got on our plane in Frankfurt! All they had there was a map! So Dad pretended it was his touche screen :)

If you have a dirty mind, you will kinda understand the joke in this picture. But then again, it was funnier aboard the plane and after not sleeping the whole seven hours of flight :)

I had a window seat! And this was my view from outside the window! It was beautifull! This picture is when we were somewhere over Poland.

Our in-flight meal came. It was a breakfast of Spinach Cheese and as I sicovered Tomate Sauce omelet. As you guys guessed, the green stuff on the side is the spinach, the solid block in the middle are the eggs, the yellow thing on top cheese and the little stringy things around were potatoes. Under the whole thing was a small layer of tomato sauce. Surpriiiiise :) The orange juice was delicious, especially when sipped while enjoying the view...

This is a picture of clouds and the cloud's shadows that the cast on the Baltic sea.Unfortunately the picture doesn't do this scenery justice. It was breathtaking :)

I was dosing off but woke up immediately after this. Reason : the stewardesses. They were really really REALLY chatty. In german, of course. But they kept making announcements aтв stuff. I wasnt complaining, the whole flight was really entertaining. Listen to the announcement in German and then listen to the one in English with a german accent and bad microphone and try decifering it. Fun!

This was taken just before we landed. I got our takeoff from Frankfurt and landing in St-Petersburg on video, Ill try posting it somewhere on the blog. The landing was spectacular. The plane was almost at 45 degrees when we turned around. And since it was a smaller plane, we definitely felt it. Dad was getting really really airsick.
I enjoyed this flight a lot more, but it was not the same for Dad :)
When we arrived at the airport, we went through this gate one by one. A very serious lady took my passport and customs declaration, stared at me frowning and then stamped my passport and customs declaration sheet. She gave me back the two of them without cracking a smile. She nodded and I left. I did say Good afternoon, Thank you and Goodbye to her, but I got a nod. Passport ladies are too serious for you!
We picked up our luggage and thought that now we have to go through customs and they are gonna be even more anal about everything than in Montreal. But when we got to inspection and were about to put down out luggage on the inspection platform, the girl there asked us:
"What do you want from us?" (yes yes, nothing is lost in translation!)
Dad was super-confused so he said: "Um..nothing?"
The girl gestured towards the door. We took our stuff and went outside. The indian guy behind us was not so lucky. They asked him to step to the side and put his luggage on the platform. Gotta love profiling :)