Twenty-seven people left High Desert Church at three thirty a. Thursday morning heading for Russia; nine people were part of the mime team, six people were the band, three were technicians, and nine people with multiple other skills and tasks. The bus to take us to the airport should have been there at three o"clock but there was some confusion and they assumed that we meant three p.m. We got it worked out and we were a little late but still got to L.A.X. on time. Our plane was scheduled to leave at seven thirty a.m. and it did. This wasn't my first plane trip but it was still pretty new to me. This flight was from L.A.X. to New York (J.F.K.), and was about six hours long. Before the plane even took off I had my headphones on and was fast asleep; so asleep that I slept right through the meal. .
I woke up just in time to go stand in a lot of annoying lines going through customs. We finished all that and I had my last chance for Starbucks. It was about ten thirty New York time Thursday morning. My next flight was an eleven-hour flight from J.F.K. to Moscow. Before we left one of the band members realized he had too much to carry on, so I handled his guitar for him. It was a really awkward fit in the overhead compartment and took some maneuvering. Right before we left, a teammate of mine, Kurt, opened the overhead and the next thing he knew the guitar hit his own wife right in the head. This broke the neck on the guitar and hit her hard enough to make her bleed. By the time we got to Moscow the sun had set and rose about three times in an eleven-hour period because of all the time zone we had crossed. It was now like eight o"clock in Moscow and we just had to wait for the bus to pick us up from the airport. Once it did we loaded all of our stuff and headed for Red Square.
On the way there I noticed something I hadn't noticed before; Moscow has become very americanized. It's sort of depressing to see electronic advertisements and cell phone adds everywhere.