Covid Turkey. Part one
And he thundered. Covid-19.
And other times have come. Self-isolation, masks, stocks of buckwheat, stew, kilka and cartridges.
Jokes about toilet paper and a happy Greta Thunberg. Basically, not much has changed for me. Life has become even more comfortable, because traffic jams have disappeared in Moscow and the region. But then Russia closed the borders. At all. And it got stuffy. If it were possible to fly at least to Kyrgyzstan, at least to Albania. But no. Even in Belarus it is impossible. This was not even in the days of the USSR. Yes, the country was closed, but there was an opportunity to leave. Here is my Late Student Exit Visa.
A few years earlier, to get it, you had to go to the district committee of the CPSU or the Komsomol and answer idiotic questions, if you were going to Czechoslovakia (there was such a country), about the economy of Moravia or list the names of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. All sorts of Vodichkovs. Bjiza and Novacheki. But even that was not an option here. Horror, nightmare and claustrophobia.
The fact that the planned trip to Northern Cyprus was covered up in the winter became clear right away. But there was hope for the opening of borders.
1986. Borispol airport. The customs officer with particular zeal searches the last Berdichev Jew leaving for permanent residence in Israel.
- You know, you can't export parrots.
- How impossible! This is my parrot.
I don't know anything. KGB order.
– What, absolutely impossible?
- It is possible, but only with a carcass or stuffed animal. You can't live.
The parrot whispers in the Jew's ear:
- Izya, even a carcass, even a stuffed animal, but let's go. ////
So I was ready, at least as a carcass, at least as a stuffed animal.
And on August 1, Russia opens its borders for flights to 4 countries*. Including to Turkey.
August 10, charter flights begin. And my daughter falls off her skateboard that day and breaks her collarbone. Aaaaaa. Hopes are shattered. But the doctors of the Children's Hospital. Bashlyaeva is doing a miracle. They screw some screws into my daughter and give her to me on August 18 with no restrictions.
The case has begun to boil. My best friend immediately agreed to keep my family company and I ordered tickets. It was at 23.55. Then, almost without looking, he booked a hotel. And when I pressed the "Confirm" button on Booking, a person from the airline company called me and said that my friend had 117 days until the end of his passport, but 120 were needed, and the system did not allow him to buy a ticket. And to all of us, too, because I bought tickets in a package. At 1.15 am I contacted Booking and tried to cancel my friend's booking. At 2am, I contacted a friend of my wife's and offered to take my friend's place. She agreed. At 2.30 I contacted the ticket company and gave new data. The company took up bookings. At 5 am, I discovered that in my haste I had mixed up the dates and had my tickets back for September 30th instead of August 30th. At 5:05 I contacted the ticket company and told them what a woodpecker I was. At 7.00 am tickets with a small fine were made. At 7.30 am, Booking informed me that the booking for a friend had been cancelled. At 7.40 I contacted Booking and asked to restore the reservation for a friend. At 7.50 it dawned on me that I managed to book a hotel without air conditioning and Wi-Fi. At 7.55 I contacted Booking and said that the reservation should be canceled for everyone. The reservation was canceled, but they gently advised me with my mental abilities in the future to buy package tours from tour operators. At 815 I booked another, the right hotel.
A low bow to the employees of Bookin Kom and the employees of the ticket company Chabuka (chabooka. ru), who even refused to tip.
In short, if a friend's passport had not run out, then we would have flown to a muddy hotel and on August 30 we would have stood in bewilderment at the Antalya airport. There is no silver lining.
The plane to Antalya was a Boeing 747.
I've never flown one like this before. And even more so, I have never flown on the second floor of an airplane. Although the dream was to fly there since childhood. It seemed to me that on the second floor of Jumbo, people fly like this:
And when during the electronic registration it turned out that on the second floor there was not only a business class, but also several rows of an economy class, I, without hesitation, paid an additional 2.500 rubles. for a ticket.
Of course, everything was quite normal there:
Except for already enough height before takeoff. Ahead are several rows of business class. In the back there is a half-empty economy salon, filled mainly with painters who wanted to join the beautiful life. But there was also an unexpected plus.
When the plane landed in Antalya, business class students were the first to be invited to the exit. Well, us, their neighbors from the second floor. And so we go down the stairs, which is located almost in the center of the plane, and we see crowds of people jumping up on both sides, even before the liner stopped. But the stewards do not let them in and escort us with a bow. Chatlan and patsakov, who have a little more katse than others. Oh, what waves of hatred I smelled. But that's not all. The stewards did not let the rest of the passengers out until we, the owners of crimson pants (quotes from the movie "Kin-dza-dza! "), Passed through passport control. It was worth it.
Continued here >>>
P. S. *Russia on August 01 opened flights to 4 countries: Great Britain, Switzerland, Turkey and, to everyone's surprise, Tanzania.
Another joke about this.
On July 30, a meeting of the Council of Federations of the Russian Federation takes place.
Speaker of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko opens the meeting.
- Dear sirs, senators. It's time to open the borders. What will be the proposals?
- Let's open the UK. Many of us have houses and apartments there.
- Lyudochka, write down Great Britain. London.
- Let's open Switzerland too.
- Reasonable. Lyudochka, write down Geneva.
- Let's open something for the people?
- That's right!! ! Let's Turkey.
- Lyudochka. Sign up Antalya. And what is it with us Pyotr Ivanovich dozing? He also has a house somewhere. I do not remember. In some second-rate country. Either Hungary or Morocco. Peter Ivanovich!! ! Where do you want to go?
- Oh. Let me go home.
- Lyudochka. Record Dodoma.
(Dodoma is the capital of Tanzania)
