As I mentioned several posts ago, my birthday present from The Boy was a trip with him to Moscow. Very exciting!
Little did we know when we booked our tickets that by the time we left the US, Moscow would be firmly in the grips of a weeks-long heat wave and buried under dense smog from wildfires.
These are the times you have to accept that there are just some things in life that you can’t control. Like heatwaves in a city (primarily) without air conditioning. And wildfires. And smog.
This trip, in short, was shaping up to be an adventure.
Ironically, The Boy and I had listened to a radio show early in the week before leaving where the host (Dave Ramsey) asked viewers to write/call in and share their vacation adventure stories. “Adventure” is the word Dave uses for vacations that go completely awry. I told The Boy that I didn’t like adventure vacations and was very glad we’d not really had a truly wonky one yet.
That was an unfortunately timed statement. Just days later we read of the smoke-driven smog enveloping Moscow. We already knew it was hot. But the smoke was another matter altogether.
Then we read of planes being diverted from the Moscow airports to St Petersburg and other cities throughout Russia. Would we be diverted as well? Who knew…and there was no way to plan or prepare since we wouldn’t know where we were landing until, well, we landed.
Lots of fun, eh?
This was going to be an adventure, we decided. And since we’d decided that we couldn’t afford the expense or time of properly touring St Petersburg, we figured that if we were diverted there it would just be a little blessing to round out our trip.
Take that type of mindset with you – that whatever will be, will be – and I can guarantee it will help keep you sane in the midst of nearly any chaos, foreign or domestic!
With that in mind, plus a package of face masks, inhalers, eye drops and nasal spray, off we headed for our own Adventure in Moscow 2010.