“Walk consisting of a paved area for pedestrians; usually beside a street or roadway”, a primary school child would probably answer that if you ask him/her to define “sidewalk” for you.
But of course if you are in Moscow you ought to be ready for a surprise. Sidewalk apparently is a place to park your car in this space starved city!!!
Don’t get what I am talking about? Probably a picture will explain better…
Beautiful sidewalk on the banks of Moscow River: Chock-a-block with cars (L). Car parked on a busy sidewalk (R)
It is actually customary to drive your car up the curb and park in a way such that half of your car body is on the street and other half on the sidewalk.
Parking: The Moscow way!
According to one article published in the Moscow Times*, the rule of parking in Moscow is simple:
“Park your car wherever and however you feel like – on the sidewalk, on a playground – and preferably so it sticks out onto the roadway or blocks other cars. In fact, if you can figure out how to park it in a tree, go for it.”
Probably this is not too bad for the bearings of cars
* June 18th article in Moscow Times, a local newspaper of Moscow
When I came to Moscow, I was promised that I would be able to move to an apartment “soon” – the initial hotel booking was just for 5 days. 25 days after arrival and repeated extensions, I was still in the hotel room.
But on 10th September, Friday evening, I was all set to move into an apartment – my home for the next few months. After the day’s work, I reached the apartment at around 8 pm.
After less than 2 minutes of excitement I found out that there was no drinking water, there was a bed, but no bed-sheet, blanket or pillow and the internet password given to me was not working. I called up the agent who had convinced me to take this apartment, “oh that’s obvious that there would be no blanket etc, you need to buy it…we can arrange for you to go to a shop on Monday”…that’s all the help she managed and this after she assured me that the house would be fully ready to “just move in and stay!”
Next, I called up the landlord as not having internet for the entire weekend was already giving me jitters. It is my only source of entertainment in this country for me when at home. The landlord promised that the previous tenant would be over in 30 min to fix the internet. Given the time frame, I decided to stay home and wait for the guy before venturing out to “explore” the nearby mall to find some food and other essentials.
I had no idea that 30 minutes can be almost 2 hours long in Moscow! Finally the guy showed up. Smartly he mentioned that “see this is the network you need to connect to and the password is…” he began to type while talking, “…and oh incorrect password! Probably it was 0987654321 or maybe…” incorrect once, incorrect twice…...incorrect nth time. Finally after 20 minutes he gave up, “I don’t understand what’s wrong….I will call the service provider and get back to you tomorrow”.
At 10:45 pm he left in the house leaving me fuming and with no time to go for dinner or to go to buy water or blanket for the night and of course no internet. Cursing the loser, I started trying some random passwords on my own. Since he was entering mostly number combinations, I tried a few like his phone number, the landlord’s phone number etc., until I entered “1234”….an error came up stating that the password need to be at least 8 characters long… next obvious attempt was ”12345678” and VOILA I WAS ONLINE!!
(Makes me believe trial and error is not too gross after all, what say?)
Pack of instant noodles which I had carried all the way form US and half a bottle of water left over in my bag from office came to the rescue for dinner. One my towels severed as my blanket and the other as my pillow on my first night in the new apartment!
But on the positive side, I had a chance to chit chat with friends and update my facebook status at night thanks to the internet ;)
And yeah, I do love the new place! Pictures of my home for the next few months follow...
