International Trip Day 4 Turkey and Germany

I was booked on Turkish Arilines from Almaty to Munich, Germany at the ungodly hour of 3 am. It was really a double whammy as Turkish Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance which means I would be crediting the miiles to my United account instead of my Delta account.

KLM (a member of SkyTeam and a Delta partner) flies from Almaty, but only every other day. As luck would have it, it was not on the day I was flying.

I arrived at the Almaty airport at about 1:30 am. I went through passport control and went to the terminal. It was a pretty tiny terminal with pretty much nothing to do. The only entertainment was a Russian movie playing on a TV in there.

The flight was 6 hours from Almaty to Istanbul. I was in the very last row in the aisle seat. A short layover and off to Munich.

That night in Munich I went to a restaurant called Augustiner. My absolute favorite German meal is wienerschnitzel with steaked potatoes. For dessert it was apple strudel.

s

International Trip Day 3

We arrived in Almaty at 7 am in the morning. A quick trip through the grumpy customs officials and I was off to the hotel. The taxi driver said that it would cost 5000 tenge to get to the($30) airport. This seemed a fair price.

Once we arrived at the hotel, the taxi driver said it would be 21,500 tenge ($125). Yeah right. Apparently, the taxi driver had said 500 tenge per kilometer at the airport. Perhaps it was the jet lag or perhaps he was trying to take advantage of some poor American soul. Whatever the case, there was no way I was paying $125.

I told him that in Moscow where it takes two hours to get to the hotel, I only pay $50. There was no way he was getting $125. He kept trying to convince me, but saw I was going to budge. He started to come down on price and we finally agreed to 7000 tenge ($40).

I went in and checked in at the Intercontinental Hotel and slept for 5 hours. I was picked up at the hotel and whisked off for some meetings in regards to our proposed operations there. An hour and a half later, we had agreed in principle.

It was time for my hosts to show me Almaty. We went to a traditional Kazakh restaurant. My host ordered at least 5 entrees off the menu (at least as far as I could tell since I don’t speak Russian). The first two dishes came and my plate was piled high by my hosts. The food was very tasty, seasoned well. The next two entrees came and my plate was piled high again. I could tell my hosts were very keen on knowing how I liked Kazakh food. It actually tasted quite good.

Finally there was one more round of entrees, but I couldn’t hardly eat anymore. I made sure and give lots of compliments through the translator to my hosts.

As were were taking the taxi back to the hotel, I asked the translator what exactly we had had for lunch. Her reply was “Pony, pork, and horse”. Lovely.

They picked me up again at 8 pm for another round. They tried to go to a couple of clubs that were full, we ended up at a nice restaurant. The drinking and eating continued until about 11 PM. At this point, I told them I would have to heard back to the hotel as my flight was leaving at 3 AM.

My hosts were very gracious the whole time and Almaty was suprisingly a very good city, that felt a lot like Kiev rather than Moscow.

International Trip Day 2

The second day in Russia was one of lots of meetings. After our meetings, we decided to meet up for lunch in downtown Moscow. 3 hours later, we had made it through the stand still traffic.

When it was time to go the airport, I noticed that there is a new express train to the airport from the Belarusskaya subway station. I’m all about the trains as you get to avoid the gnarly traffic jams.

I left the hotel at 6:45 PM to take the express train. The signs to the train weren’t exactly clear, but I was able to make the 7:20 train. I got off the train, only to realize that I would have to take a bus to terminal C. I navigated my way down to the bus and took it to terminal C. I ended up arriving at 9:30 PM for my 11:30 PM flight. So much for added speed from the express train.

There was absolutely nothing to do in the airport terminal. There was two restaurants and no plugs anywhere to charge my laptop. I ate a “burrito” and got on the plane at 11:30 PM. 8 hours later I was in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Upcoming Europe trip

Europe is one of my favorite destinations when it comes to travel. Perhaps it’s because you can get such a different experience because the countries are in such a close proximity.

The trip I will be hitting Russia, Kazakhstan, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway in the span of about a week and a half.

This will be my first time to Kazakhstan and doing some research I have discovered that I will be there during the annual Oil and Gas Exhibition. This has caused some of the top hotels to be fully booked. I will be staying at a Hyatt which hasn’t received exactly spectacular online reviews.

I’m very excited to be returning to the motherland, Sweden. It’s been almost two years since I was last there. I’ll have to take an extra suitcase to smuggle all the Musli Frukt and cheese back to the USA.