Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Don't drink the water. If you get water at a restaurant, ask for the bottle so you can make sure they haven't recycled the bottled water. Bring your own toilet paper and tissue paper. Don't bring your bank card. Make copies of your passport. Don't wear the backstage pass on the outside of your clothes. Don't go out alone at night.
This is going to be a great trip.
I am a little bit more pleased about it because we now have meetings with the Minister of Culture for the region as well as with the director of the National Theatre. These came along at the last possible minute and have really saved the trip. Otherwise, for no reason whatsoever, I would be traveling in a bus for 10 hours with heavy metal bands on our way to a poor Russian town, where it seems as if you cannot even leave the hotel, in order to listen to music I don't like, to be around a bunch of people I don't know and to be in a town that nobody wants to be in.
This is going to be a great trip.
We just met with our translator, who speaks fluent Finnish, English and Russian, and we discussed the goals of the trip. Pretty simple stuff, just be nice and make friends with the Ministers. She's looking at this trip as a nice little vacation. A vacation to Siberia, but a vacation nevertheless. So for a minute things began to look up in the whole trip to Russia department. But then I tell her that there is only one rule: we must take it easy on Thursday night because we have important meetings on Friday morning. She then tells us her only rule: she will not serve as a translator to prostitutes. Because she has been on too many of these "official" trips where the guys in charge ask her to ask the girls how much they charge.
This is going to be a great trip.
This is going to be a great trip.
I am a little bit more pleased about it because we now have meetings with the Minister of Culture for the region as well as with the director of the National Theatre. These came along at the last possible minute and have really saved the trip. Otherwise, for no reason whatsoever, I would be traveling in a bus for 10 hours with heavy metal bands on our way to a poor Russian town, where it seems as if you cannot even leave the hotel, in order to listen to music I don't like, to be around a bunch of people I don't know and to be in a town that nobody wants to be in.
This is going to be a great trip.
We just met with our translator, who speaks fluent Finnish, English and Russian, and we discussed the goals of the trip. Pretty simple stuff, just be nice and make friends with the Ministers. She's looking at this trip as a nice little vacation. A vacation to Siberia, but a vacation nevertheless. So for a minute things began to look up in the whole trip to Russia department. But then I tell her that there is only one rule: we must take it easy on Thursday night because we have important meetings on Friday morning. She then tells us her only rule: she will not serve as a translator to prostitutes. Because she has been on too many of these "official" trips where the guys in charge ask her to ask the girls how much they charge.
This is going to be a great trip.
// posted by Howard @ 9:35 AM 
