Heading West (Hopefully)

I finished my last session at the camp tonight. I told one of my favorite stories–“The Unbreakable Teapot.” It has an open ending that demands a lot of the audience. When I have told it in the States, I’m always inundated with people wanting me to tell them how the story ends. Tonight, not a single person asked me for the ending. My friend Rob, who has been living here for four years now, says that Russians are much more comfortable with ambiguity and open-endings. It may have been that they understood that some stories aren’t meant to have an ending. It also could have been that the story didn’t connect with them. Sometimes its hard to tell.

In a few hours I’ll fly out of Novosibirsk to Moscow. From Moscow I’ll hopefully catch a flight to New York. I say hopefully because I’m flying on a Buddy Pass Standby ticket. This means that if there is room, I get a seat in “Business Elite” class. That’s how I flew on the way over here. It makes a ten hour flight almost enjoyable. I could also end up in coach depending on availability. It is also possible that I won’t get on the plane at all. That’s the risk you take when you fly this way. The absurdly cheap ticket price makes it worth it. The biggest problem with my Moscow connection is that if I don’t get on the Saturday flight, there is not another one until Sunday, and if I don’t get on that one, then there is not another one until Monday. You get the idea. In about 10 hours, I could be traveling in luxury or I could be checking into a hotel in Moscow with nothing to do except spend the day praying for an open seat on the next flight. This is not something Rob mentioned to me when he told me what a sweet deal I was getting on airfare. Since he is giving me a ride to the airport, I’m not going to give him the dressing down he deserves until I am safely in Oklahoma.

I’m really hoping for “Business Elite” as I think 10 hours in coach will turn my already sore back into a pretzel. If the choice between staying in Moscow for another day or seeing Heather and the boys on Saturday night depends on whether or not I’m willing to crawl into the overhead luggage compartment then I’m ready to be stowed like a Samsonite.