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Yesterday evening, after countless screenings, scannings, body and baggage checks and two flights (one lasting over twelve hours), I made it from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Laguna Niguel, California. I never saw the sun set yesterday during over twenty-five hours of travel.
I will spare you all the gory details. Enough to say that I arrived home safely with all my stuff - except for a .25 liter bottle of Armenian cognac (5 star, the best) that my dear mother-in-law had given me and which I had foolishly stuffed in my backpack at the last minute. I had forgotten that the American Government has decided that liquids such as cognac can be deadly weapons, so I had to give it up. (Apparently liquids are allowed going to Russia from America, but not to America from Russia.) I was not happy with myself or the woman who first went through all my things and didn't notice or warn me about this prohibited liquid which I could have easly stuffed in my checked-in baggage. Sorry, I promised not to go into gory details.
I'm presently too jet-lagged out to update my blog with my impressions of Borovichi and the marvelous wedding I attended. However something dawned on my jet-lagged brain today: I realized that I've spoken more English back home today than in all four previous weeks of my vacation. I think many Russians thought I was a very wise and attentative conversationalist. When people asked me if I spoke Russian, I would say in Russian, "A little, but unfortunately I do not speak Russian fluently", whereby they would always assure me that I did speak Russian very well and continue to speak to me at length. And I was in fact attentative, trying hard to figure out when it was was appropriate to say Da or Nyet or simply nod my head. People always seemed to be impressed with my level of comprehension even when I didn't understand half of what they were saying. I bet I could even do the same thing with the Chinese language: simply learn the words for yes and no, smile and nod my head a lot. The Chinese would think that I was a brillant linguist!