Flying Mickey

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MIKKEL GOES RUSSIAN/TURKISH Written: 18 JUNE 2003
On Friday afternoon I got the message that I was going to Moscow the following Monday to follow a chartred plane from Moscow to Ankara on Tuesday transporting a group of people from the NATO Defence College as a part of their European tour. For those of you who haven't been to Russia: You have to have a visa to get into the country. But getting a visa on a Friday afternoon from the Russian Embassy showed itself to be completely impossible, so we went without a visa and hoped for the best!!	I booked the cheapest tickets I could get, which ended in Business Class on Aeroflot Tupolev 154M from Oslo to Moscow.
At Sheremetyevo (the Airport) a 3 hour long visa hell was awaiting. The immigration consisted of a bunch of women in tight/short uniforms. None of them were even close to pretty, and all of them were extremely angry. None spoke English, so when we came to the immigration without a visa or a planeticket out of Moscow, they almost put us on the next flight back to Oslo. We sat on a bench for nearly 2 hours without knowing what was going on. Our passports and tickets home from Ankara was taken from us a long time ago, so all we really could do was to wait. Finally a man in a suit came up to us and said in an elegant Russian accent: "You come with me". Luckily he spoke really good English compared with everyone else we'd been talking to, and he seemed to be willing to help us. Apparently there were only one man on the entire airport who could authorize the visas to be issued... "The Counselor". Luckily he was just as obliging and the whole thing ended with us being a Russian visa richer, but $ 180 and a bottle of whiskey poorer. The guy that helped us actually said it straight out: "You buy me whiskey?", so we did as he told us.
	Here I am on The Red Square with the Kreml on the left in the background. Unfortunately it was under restoration, but at least I got to see it
On Tuesday we went from Sheremetyevo, Moscow to Esenboga, Ankara in a chartred MD-83 from the Turkish airline Free Bird. The flight went well, but we got to Ankara half an hour late, though noone seemed to care. We had to go to the hotel with the NATO people to find our luggage, cause it was automatically driven to the hotel upon arrival. When we finally got to the hotel, they couldn't find our reservation, even though I had the confirmation in my hand. The hotel was of course fully booked, but they solved it by booking us into another hotel. The time was nearly 11 when we were settled, but we had to go out and see the city. As we had some problems finding food we ended up eating fast food bought on the street, something at least I never should have done...... We were woken the next day at 4:50 with breakfast on the bed. The airport shuttle departed from the hotell at 5:30 to get us to the airport in time. We flew a Lufthansa Airbus 321 to Munich and a SAS 737-600 back to Oslo. The trip was in total a great experience, even though it was a bit too much traveling around and too little time being a tourist. I worthy end to my military career.
Free Bird MD-83	I was of course cheeky enough to ask the crew to line up for a photosession. No reason to hide why!!!