April 27

It's two days later, and Debbie and I have been quite busy. The talk on Monday went very well, and for once I did not go over. It was well received, and I have been getting some nice comments from folks here.

There was a poster session last night, and I kept folks waiting while I visited all the posters (it took about 45 minutes longer than was allocated, but the grad students/post-docs were all grateful to have a chat, and I couldn't say no to anyone. Some of the posters were quite good, so I learned something new. The allergies have kicked in with a vengeance, so I am now eating Strepsils (with vitamin C) to try and get a hand on things. I am glad I brought my hydrocodone -- it's an excellent cough suppressant.

Debbie and I ducked the last afternoon talk before the poster session, and we took a walk down Baumann Street, picking up a couple of small souvenirs, as well as rubbing the belly of the Kazan Cat (Казанского кот). It's supposed to bring good luck and money, so we'll see.

Today the meeting moves to the University, so it is a quick and easy walk from the hotel, and this afternoon, we go to see Sviyazhsk, which is where Ivan the Terrible built a fortress in the sixteenth century. It is almost an island, being connected to the mainland by a single road.

Tonight I promise to post pictures.

It's early morning on April 25, and this morning I present my talk.

The trip over was less eventful than I would have preferred -- Debbie and I got a window and a middle seat, so I ended up siting in the middle. The flight to JFK went fine, but that's when things started to go haywire. We were late out of JFK because they had scheduled two flights -- one to Martinique, and ours to Moscow -- from adjacent gates with a common ramp, so they refused to begin boarding us until the Martinique flight had closed their doors. We also had several people in wheelchairs, but the contracts at JFK meant that their family members were prevented from pushing them down the ramp to the plane. You must give Aeroflot credit, though -- they had a fully loaded (packed!) 777 boarded and off just 10 minutes late after having boarding held up for over half an hour.

As usual, I didn't sleep very well, so I was half dopey when we got to Moscow. I seem to have had a penchant for picking the slowest line everywhere, so when we got to Passport Control, we were just about the last to get through. Also, Delta had not checked out bags through from Moscow to Kazan, so we had to do that as well. All in all, we were the last two to board our flight (I swore we were going to miss it) expect for a couple of pilots deadheading it to Kazan.

We were met at the airport by Prof. Igor Antipin, an old friend, and he drove us back to or hotel. Since we had arrived so early, our room wasn't ready yet, so we went shopping (yes, I had us in a bookstore pretty quickly). I don't know if we will or not, but the same bookstore has a  complete boxed set (paperback) of the Harry Potter books in Russian.

Once our room was ready, we came on up and just had to lie down. Both of us slept for a couple of hours, at least. The weather was beautiful, except for a howling wind -- mis 50s, and bright sunshine.

After doing some ironing, we took a stroll down Kremlevskaya Street, and found a little cafe/bar where we had an excellent dark beer and some really good food. I will let Debbie add her take to this -- she's much better than I am at that sort of thing.

April 17, 2016. Debbie and I are just a week away from being in Kazan again. There is still much to do, and we have just spent the weekend shopping for new luggage and a new camera to replace our old, clunky one. I confess to a lot of excitement as I wait to see my new book. It does feel a little weird to have your work translated into another language, but it feels good, too.

We leave very early Saturday morning (2:45 am), and will then be traveling for about close to 24 hours before we arrive in Kazan (at 10:00 Sunday morning, local time).