Back to Istanbul, funnily with exactly the same arrival and departure dates as last year on our fabulous trip with Karmen, Kristiina, and Rein. And almost like last year, it's the time of the year when I move between Riga and Istanbul a lot... last year, I had to fly from Tashkent to Istanbul and on to Riga, left the terminal, went back inside, met my three travel mates, and flew back to Istanbul with the same plane (much to the amusement of the cabin crew...). This year, it's a little better, and I have about 36 hours in Riga after returning from Istanbul - before flying to Tashkent via Istanbul. Turkey times.
Anyway, the Istanbul trip version 2009 was again amazing. We came in groups of two, namely two Estonians, two Latvians, two Lithuanians, two Swiss, and most of the time we went around with two Turks. Had the big flood begun during our stay, we would have considered building a boat; reproduction would have led to some problems though.
Well: Nice restaurants, interesting conversations, a great group of people, some nice clubs and places (some old favorites and some new loves), a football which Besiktas unfortunately lost, and more. Note to self: Bring such kinds of people together more often. It's stunning how apparently they just got along very well (or maybe I just haven't noticed some fistfight), even though most had never met before. A pleasure and a privilege.
Anyway, the Istanbul trip version 2009 was again amazing. We came in groups of two, namely two Estonians, two Latvians, two Lithuanians, two Swiss, and most of the time we went around with two Turks. Had the big flood begun during our stay, we would have considered building a boat; reproduction would have led to some problems though.
Well: Nice restaurants, interesting conversations, a great group of people, some nice clubs and places (some old favorites and some new loves), a football which Besiktas unfortunately lost, and more. Note to self: Bring such kinds of people together more often. It's stunning how apparently they just got along very well (or maybe I just haven't noticed some fistfight), even though most had never met before. A pleasure and a privilege.
The PMR, or Pridnistrovian Moldovan Republic, or simply Transnistria, is a breakway republic in respectively nearby Moldova, depending on how you look at it. Read Wikipedia or watch the arte documentary or the short "Mit Offenen Karten" episode or google it, if you want to know more. Or some summary (ehem) below here.
Additional posts with more personal experiences and photos will follow.
Additional posts with more personal experiences and photos will follow.
So, yeah, I'm in Spain. It's good. Nice and stuff. A country, I suppose, though how should I know that for sure, it looks pretty much like a hotel seen from here. Anyhow, it's a good place, sure. I think it's been around for a while, so it must be a good place, otherwise the brand would've died long ago.
Regarding that brand, yeah, I know, I'm not really in Spain, only sort of, cause this is actually Bilbao and that's Basque country, and that's not the same, I know. So it's Basque country with Spanish number plates on the cars and European currency. Hey, I do kind of like that.
Oh, and a nice airport, too. Beautiful. I love the trick at the arrivals that when you grab your luggage and walk to the "exit", you discover that this is actually an "exit". "Exit" as in really bloody massive total "exit", meaning, you actually stand outside the moment you walk through that door, cause it leads straight out of the building. Cool.
And it's not too cold, and the old ladies wear that typical old ladies' perfume and indecent make-up, and the garbage can at the street near my hotel entrance smells like a garbage can in a southern country is supposed to smell, and you may never have noticed, but that is actually different from how garbage smells elsewhere. There's a specific Mediterranean garbage smell - pay attention next time you're in Barcelona or Avignon or Marseille or Venice or something. They all smell very similar, and that's very different from other garbage cans. No need to go and sniff around - walking past does the job.
Regarding that brand, yeah, I know, I'm not really in Spain, only sort of, cause this is actually Bilbao and that's Basque country, and that's not the same, I know. So it's Basque country with Spanish number plates on the cars and European currency. Hey, I do kind of like that.
Oh, and a nice airport, too. Beautiful. I love the trick at the arrivals that when you grab your luggage and walk to the "exit", you discover that this is actually an "exit". "Exit" as in really bloody massive total "exit", meaning, you actually stand outside the moment you walk through that door, cause it leads straight out of the building. Cool.
And it's not too cold, and the old ladies wear that typical old ladies' perfume and indecent make-up, and the garbage can at the street near my hotel entrance smells like a garbage can in a southern country is supposed to smell, and you may never have noticed, but that is actually different from how garbage smells elsewhere. There's a specific Mediterranean garbage smell - pay attention next time you're in Barcelona or Avignon or Marseille or Venice or something. They all smell very similar, and that's very different from other garbage cans. No need to go and sniff around - walking past does the job.
Been rather quiet here, I'm afraid. Well, much going on. Good, in general. Brief news:
Lots of work. Interesting and fun.
Trip to Bilbao coming up this week, plus a stopover in Munich.
Next weekend an open company event which is essentially a pub crawl through some of Riga's more interesting parts.
Then a trip to Chisinau and hopefully Tiraspol in March, and soon after that a two day journey to Kyiv and Chernobyl (I've been there once, but only for a day trip - this time, it looks like we'll make it an overnight).
April will lead to Istanbul for a few days, funnily at the same dates as last year.
And in between all that, much work, and probably two or three TV shootings in different places.
Yeah: That's it in short. I hope to be back here soon...
Lots of work. Interesting and fun.
Trip to Bilbao coming up this week, plus a stopover in Munich.
Next weekend an open company event which is essentially a pub crawl through some of Riga's more interesting parts.
Then a trip to Chisinau and hopefully Tiraspol in March, and soon after that a two day journey to Kyiv and Chernobyl (I've been there once, but only for a day trip - this time, it looks like we'll make it an overnight).
April will lead to Istanbul for a few days, funnily at the same dates as last year.
And in between all that, much work, and probably two or three TV shootings in different places.
Yeah: That's it in short. I hope to be back here soon...
Happy in Tashkent, indeed.
Loads and loads of nice people. Great atmosphere almost all the time. Smiles and positive attitude. No matter where, you end up talking with someone. Strangers become acquaintances in a moment. Not to mention all the nice old friends whom I had last met in May. And a client whose staff I count among these friends, too. A very constructive and close way of cooperation, of developing solutions; open-minded and together. They know what I don't know, I (sometimes) know what they don't know. We work it out, and it's an enormously fruitful process. And fun.
Almost got enough sleep in the last two nights, because I spent some time in my room and went to sleep as early as I possibly could. Friday today, planning to look how my dear old VM Bar is doing, a wild and nice underground venue with colorful fun people.
And yesterday, I was a guest at Shakhrukh's birthday party at his family's home. The way how people live together here, compared to Europe, has always been the topic of interesting discussions we had. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages, obviously; the advantages are obvious, the disadvantages become obvious when you live in this way.
The European style being that children move away from home, first live alone, explore the world (and maybe themselves), then get married, have their own family, visit their parents occasionally, then the parents end up in a retirement home, and so on. Few children, partly because we want to explore our individual life opportunities; partly because both parents want to work; partly because it's just the way it is.
The Uzbek way being that you live with your parents until you get married. Then the wife would usually move to the husband's family, where they'd live together with his parents. You tend to have a number of children, and it's no problem, since there are their grandparents who take care of them, certainly better than any nanny. The grandparents remain involved in family life, remain active, a part of a clan, they have a purpose, and - they are not left alone. The individuality and personal life goals of the young couple may suffer, since parents remain parents; and even though this system would allow plenty of opportunity for the wife to work, it's still more common that she doesn't, as she's supposed to be a good mother and be with the kids. Other family members would visit often, the sense of togetherness and belonging is impressive.
As said: Both ways have their positive and negative sides, obviously. Both could learn a few little things from each other, but then again, don't really need to. Both have positive and negative consequences for society as a whole (though in this one I'd say the European way scores worse, consequences for society being rather bad indeed). But whatever, I'm no culture pessimist, I believe that humans always find a way to solve problems, once they really need to (it's like with trying to get work done within deadline - you'll start when it's really high time).
The evening at Shakhrukh's family, however, was absolutely amazing. It's indeed both a pleasure and a honour to be invited to this gathering, to experience the incredible atmosphere, openness, hospitality. Also the rituals, which I often wouldn't share, but certainly respect. Hospitality around here is already impressive in everyday life, but within a family, it beats everything I had ever seen. People of all ages, a big long table, and me just in there, as if it was completely natural - and the beautiful thing being, of course: Yes, it is completely natural. That's the very point.
And we're all humans in the end, that's the other beautiful thing that comes out of any such event, in any place. One of the things I enjoy most is the fact that mothers are the same anywhere. With every good mother you meet, you always recognize your own mother. Fathers tend to be similar to each other, too, but not as similar as mothers are. Including, of course, Shakhrukh's mother, who would speak about her daughter who lives in Sweden, tell about her wedding with shining eyes, and you could feel how she suffers from the distance, and of course she would bring the photo albums at some point. Smiles, openness, laughter, nice words, and a genuinely natural atmosphere.
And I haven't even started praising the food...
Loads and loads of nice people. Great atmosphere almost all the time. Smiles and positive attitude. No matter where, you end up talking with someone. Strangers become acquaintances in a moment. Not to mention all the nice old friends whom I had last met in May. And a client whose staff I count among these friends, too. A very constructive and close way of cooperation, of developing solutions; open-minded and together. They know what I don't know, I (sometimes) know what they don't know. We work it out, and it's an enormously fruitful process. And fun.
Almost got enough sleep in the last two nights, because I spent some time in my room and went to sleep as early as I possibly could. Friday today, planning to look how my dear old VM Bar is doing, a wild and nice underground venue with colorful fun people.
And yesterday, I was a guest at Shakhrukh's birthday party at his family's home. The way how people live together here, compared to Europe, has always been the topic of interesting discussions we had. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages, obviously; the advantages are obvious, the disadvantages become obvious when you live in this way.
The European style being that children move away from home, first live alone, explore the world (and maybe themselves), then get married, have their own family, visit their parents occasionally, then the parents end up in a retirement home, and so on. Few children, partly because we want to explore our individual life opportunities; partly because both parents want to work; partly because it's just the way it is.
The Uzbek way being that you live with your parents until you get married. Then the wife would usually move to the husband's family, where they'd live together with his parents. You tend to have a number of children, and it's no problem, since there are their grandparents who take care of them, certainly better than any nanny. The grandparents remain involved in family life, remain active, a part of a clan, they have a purpose, and - they are not left alone. The individuality and personal life goals of the young couple may suffer, since parents remain parents; and even though this system would allow plenty of opportunity for the wife to work, it's still more common that she doesn't, as she's supposed to be a good mother and be with the kids. Other family members would visit often, the sense of togetherness and belonging is impressive.
As said: Both ways have their positive and negative sides, obviously. Both could learn a few little things from each other, but then again, don't really need to. Both have positive and negative consequences for society as a whole (though in this one I'd say the European way scores worse, consequences for society being rather bad indeed). But whatever, I'm no culture pessimist, I believe that humans always find a way to solve problems, once they really need to (it's like with trying to get work done within deadline - you'll start when it's really high time).
The evening at Shakhrukh's family, however, was absolutely amazing. It's indeed both a pleasure and a honour to be invited to this gathering, to experience the incredible atmosphere, openness, hospitality. Also the rituals, which I often wouldn't share, but certainly respect. Hospitality around here is already impressive in everyday life, but within a family, it beats everything I had ever seen. People of all ages, a big long table, and me just in there, as if it was completely natural - and the beautiful thing being, of course: Yes, it is completely natural. That's the very point.
And we're all humans in the end, that's the other beautiful thing that comes out of any such event, in any place. One of the things I enjoy most is the fact that mothers are the same anywhere. With every good mother you meet, you always recognize your own mother. Fathers tend to be similar to each other, too, but not as similar as mothers are. Including, of course, Shakhrukh's mother, who would speak about her daughter who lives in Sweden, tell about her wedding with shining eyes, and you could feel how she suffers from the distance, and of course she would bring the photo albums at some point. Smiles, openness, laughter, nice words, and a genuinely natural atmosphere.
And I haven't even started praising the food...
The opening event of the new Karavan restaurant yesterday was, well, a little odd. I went there just as an accidental guest, accompanying our ambassador with whom we had agreed to visit a private party later in the evening, and joining to Karavan was the easiest way to meet. A surprisingly official event: Almost a hundred people, most of them from the diplomatic corps. They all know each other from earlier events, but I had my social points as well, since I knew a couple of the waitresses and waiters from their regular job at Chelsea Arms. Anyhow, nice new restaurant, nice snacks, nice people. And a private party with plenty of Tuborg and some pretty interesting discussions with the very diverse guests there. Lots of politics and info exchange, as usual here, and some good fun.
Today it's time for a quiet night of lots of sleep. Still plenty of work to do these days, and old friends to meet (there are still a few people I haven't even managed to call yet...).
Today it's time for a quiet night of lots of sleep. Still plenty of work to do these days, and old friends to meet (there are still a few people I haven't even managed to call yet...).
Having a rather good time here, with daily meetings also during free days, but in a relaxed way; with a free Monday (constitution day) that we use for meetings, too; with reasonably acceptable temperatures.
Yesterday with culture - our new ambassador in Tashkent and me went to see a show at the Istiklol Palace, with one Russian (actually Armenian) and one Uzbek stand-up comedian, or whatever you'd call the Russian equivalent of a stand-up comedian, because the discipline is indeed a bit different. Overall, a nice show, even though the style of humour of course as mainstream and sometimes obvious as you'd expect. The Uzbek guy was better, and managed to surprise a number of times, including jokes that came rather unexpected, and some even slightly political hints.
The huge room in the Istiklol was quite full; the whole room and building there at Druzhba Narodov are simply crazy, and feature the biggest toilet room I've ever seen, with enough sinks to have all of Estonia's army brush their teeth at the same time. However, happy planning: It appears the main halls can't really be heated, and the concert hall itself was pretty cold, too, so that most people would sit in their winter jackets. The sound system is a total disaster, and whoever got to the idea of turning the volume up so loud just has no clue about human physiology - the simple voices of the two comedians were at times pain in the brain.
Anyway, it's been fun, the show was rather good, and the discovery of a new and quite decent Pizza place later on didn't hurt (Pizza Napoli at Shota Rustaveli, a few hundred meters after the crossing with the road leading to the airport).
Since I keep praising Tashkent (I obviously like being here), I figured I should come up with a few things that I seriously dislike here, too. Leaving politics aside, and just to keep the balance. Equally, I might some day come up with a few things I like about Almaty (except for the classic "the mountains"). So here's what I dislike about Tashkent:
Yesterday with culture - our new ambassador in Tashkent and me went to see a show at the Istiklol Palace, with one Russian (actually Armenian) and one Uzbek stand-up comedian, or whatever you'd call the Russian equivalent of a stand-up comedian, because the discipline is indeed a bit different. Overall, a nice show, even though the style of humour of course as mainstream and sometimes obvious as you'd expect. The Uzbek guy was better, and managed to surprise a number of times, including jokes that came rather unexpected, and some even slightly political hints.
The huge room in the Istiklol was quite full; the whole room and building there at Druzhba Narodov are simply crazy, and feature the biggest toilet room I've ever seen, with enough sinks to have all of Estonia's army brush their teeth at the same time. However, happy planning: It appears the main halls can't really be heated, and the concert hall itself was pretty cold, too, so that most people would sit in their winter jackets. The sound system is a total disaster, and whoever got to the idea of turning the volume up so loud just has no clue about human physiology - the simple voices of the two comedians were at times pain in the brain.
Anyway, it's been fun, the show was rather good, and the discovery of a new and quite decent Pizza place later on didn't hurt (Pizza Napoli at Shota Rustaveli, a few hundred meters after the crossing with the road leading to the airport).
Since I keep praising Tashkent (I obviously like being here), I figured I should come up with a few things that I seriously dislike here, too. Leaving politics aside, and just to keep the balance. Equally, I might some day come up with a few things I like about Almaty (except for the classic "the mountains"). So here's what I dislike about Tashkent:
I mentioned it repeatedly: I always enjoy being in Uzbekistan. Once you're through the terrible airport and its inefficient idiocy, you enter a very nice place. Not necessarily a beautiful city, but one in which one can feel comfortable.
The biggest surprise to me is always that the service culture and people's ways of interacting are so far away from what you're normally used to experience particularly in post-Soviet and Slavic mix cultures: The radical egoism, the careless attitude towards other people, the angry or at best suspicious faces, the pushing for one's own space, the general lack of any positiveness in daily interaction with random strangers.
Almost none of it here (only at the airport...). As we had our alternative landing in Bukhara, the border guards and airport staff were friendly, joking around with people, later some of them even went to buy water and sell it to the waiting passengers for the same price. Can you imagine Russian airport border guards doing any of the above? See.
I walk into my hotel early in the morning, and the receptionist is smiling, and offers to do all the paperwork later, because "you must be very tired!", and asks to just have my passport and phone number for the time being, and we could fill the rest later.
One guy from the paintball company with whom we went playing Friday evening who starts chatting outside, normal bloke, curious to exchange opinions. Our driver who's always fun to be with, an archetype of a local guy. Smiling waiters and waitresses. Maxim from the hotel night-club who remembers me the moment I walk through the door, even though my last visit had been in February.
It's a different attitude here, and it's always a pleasure being a guest in Uzbekistan.
Kstati, the first day was rather short. After going to bed at around 10:00, I woke up at around 15:30, and made it to the office just in time to see the end of the last presentation, by a guy who was seemingly more interested in showing off how sophisticated he is, than in actually telling anything of relevance. Then we went to play paintball (first time for me in Uzbekistan), and have dinner in what's probably the worst place I've seen in Tashkent. A place called "Jeans Bar", jeans theme, mediocre food, extremely loud extremely bad music, playing from a crappy sound system, and an entertainer guy who keeps the room busy with games and jokes and competitions. Easy to get a headache from all the noise within 10 minutes. Friendly service, but a slow kitchen. Funny though, back to the above topic, how they care what you think: When I went to the toilet and stood there in the corridor for a few minutes to relax (half the noise of the main room), one of the waiters approached to ask if I didn't like the place, and if yes, why that was so. Hard to explain him, but yeah. Can't say it was best in class.
But whatever, there's a bad pick once in a while. The hotel's nightclub was crap as well, but crap in the positive sense (it's been the same for years, and yesterday it was almost completely empty). Good place to have a Sarbast, because it costs about $3 in the club, compared to $6.50 from room service and in the restaurant upstairs. And the fun waiter guy from February still works there, yet the club was almost empty, no money-throwing idiots this time. I didn't last for long, after performing the necessary duty to increase a client's market share, I went to bed.
And slept a lot.
The biggest surprise to me is always that the service culture and people's ways of interacting are so far away from what you're normally used to experience particularly in post-Soviet and Slavic mix cultures: The radical egoism, the careless attitude towards other people, the angry or at best suspicious faces, the pushing for one's own space, the general lack of any positiveness in daily interaction with random strangers.
Almost none of it here (only at the airport...). As we had our alternative landing in Bukhara, the border guards and airport staff were friendly, joking around with people, later some of them even went to buy water and sell it to the waiting passengers for the same price. Can you imagine Russian airport border guards doing any of the above? See.
I walk into my hotel early in the morning, and the receptionist is smiling, and offers to do all the paperwork later, because "you must be very tired!", and asks to just have my passport and phone number for the time being, and we could fill the rest later.
One guy from the paintball company with whom we went playing Friday evening who starts chatting outside, normal bloke, curious to exchange opinions. Our driver who's always fun to be with, an archetype of a local guy. Smiling waiters and waitresses. Maxim from the hotel night-club who remembers me the moment I walk through the door, even though my last visit had been in February.
It's a different attitude here, and it's always a pleasure being a guest in Uzbekistan.
Kstati, the first day was rather short. After going to bed at around 10:00, I woke up at around 15:30, and made it to the office just in time to see the end of the last presentation, by a guy who was seemingly more interested in showing off how sophisticated he is, than in actually telling anything of relevance. Then we went to play paintball (first time for me in Uzbekistan), and have dinner in what's probably the worst place I've seen in Tashkent. A place called "Jeans Bar", jeans theme, mediocre food, extremely loud extremely bad music, playing from a crappy sound system, and an entertainer guy who keeps the room busy with games and jokes and competitions. Easy to get a headache from all the noise within 10 minutes. Friendly service, but a slow kitchen. Funny though, back to the above topic, how they care what you think: When I went to the toilet and stood there in the corridor for a few minutes to relax (half the noise of the main room), one of the waiters approached to ask if I didn't like the place, and if yes, why that was so. Hard to explain him, but yeah. Can't say it was best in class.
But whatever, there's a bad pick once in a while. The hotel's nightclub was crap as well, but crap in the positive sense (it's been the same for years, and yesterday it was almost completely empty). Good place to have a Sarbast, because it costs about $3 in the club, compared to $6.50 from room service and in the restaurant upstairs. And the fun waiter guy from February still works there, yet the club was almost empty, no money-throwing idiots this time. I didn't last for long, after performing the necessary duty to increase a client's market share, I went to bed.
And slept a lot.
It took a stunning 11 hours to get to Tashkent this time.
The first delay was caused by a technical problem with the plane at Riga airport, and airBaltic made a whole bunch of new enemies - with good reasons. Instead of either figuring out that there is a problem a little earlier and leaving us at the terminal, or sending us back from the plane to the terminal, they simply left all passengers wait in two crowded buses near the plane. For a little more than an hour. I completely fail to see why there was no way to get us back to the terminal, where I had a nice hang-out area with a stable and free WiFi waiting for me.
What's worse: No explanations. Not a word from anyone during the whole time. We just stood in the bus and waited, that's it. No update, not even a "we don't know what's up, please be patient". AirBaltic is indeed not improving during the recent months. And it always pisses me off when this kind of careless "Russian style business" sneaks into perfectly normal Baltic businesses, because it's just not supposed to be that way...
We left Riga something more than an hour late, and flew to Tashkent. I noticed that we remained on cruising altitude longer than usual, and had made some rather big circles. Suddenly it turned out that we'll be landing in Bukhara instead of Tashkent, because of fog in Tashkent.
Arrival in Bukhara. They let us sit in the plane for another 45 minutes, again without really giving any concrete information about what's going to happen, or how long it might take. After that, we're driven to the airport's arrival hall, a rather small room that got totally crowded. The Uzbek staff there opened a few more doors for us, and even opened a smoking area, and went to buy water that they sold us for purchase price. AirBaltic had, to this point, not considered it necessary to maybe give people at least something to drink.
We spent another probably about two hours in Bukhara airport, during which I talked mostly with two Chinese business travelers who are selling communication equipment in Eastern Europe and Africa, one of whom spoke rather good English. I had been talking about the situation, about the city of Bukhara, and we spoke about lots of other stuff, when it turned out at the very end that he probably didn't understand quite as much as he spoke: As they brought us back to the plane and we boarded again, he asked me why we're back in the plane, why we can't just leave Tashkent airport, and was rather surprised when I repeated what the pilot and me had been telling a number of times: We are not in Tashkent, but in fact some 600 kilometres away.
Short flight to Tashkent, where I managed to apply all my Tashkent Airport Strategy and get out first, by taking the best position in the bus to get to passport control, by being the only person who had prepared the customs declaration in the plane, and of by having only hand luggage. Turned out: My poor driver had been waiting around for hours...
Leaving Riga on a flight scheduled for 18:35, arriving in Tashkent after 8 in the morning local time. Whoo. Time for some sleep.
The first delay was caused by a technical problem with the plane at Riga airport, and airBaltic made a whole bunch of new enemies - with good reasons. Instead of either figuring out that there is a problem a little earlier and leaving us at the terminal, or sending us back from the plane to the terminal, they simply left all passengers wait in two crowded buses near the plane. For a little more than an hour. I completely fail to see why there was no way to get us back to the terminal, where I had a nice hang-out area with a stable and free WiFi waiting for me.
What's worse: No explanations. Not a word from anyone during the whole time. We just stood in the bus and waited, that's it. No update, not even a "we don't know what's up, please be patient". AirBaltic is indeed not improving during the recent months. And it always pisses me off when this kind of careless "Russian style business" sneaks into perfectly normal Baltic businesses, because it's just not supposed to be that way...
We left Riga something more than an hour late, and flew to Tashkent. I noticed that we remained on cruising altitude longer than usual, and had made some rather big circles. Suddenly it turned out that we'll be landing in Bukhara instead of Tashkent, because of fog in Tashkent.
Arrival in Bukhara. They let us sit in the plane for another 45 minutes, again without really giving any concrete information about what's going to happen, or how long it might take. After that, we're driven to the airport's arrival hall, a rather small room that got totally crowded. The Uzbek staff there opened a few more doors for us, and even opened a smoking area, and went to buy water that they sold us for purchase price. AirBaltic had, to this point, not considered it necessary to maybe give people at least something to drink.
We spent another probably about two hours in Bukhara airport, during which I talked mostly with two Chinese business travelers who are selling communication equipment in Eastern Europe and Africa, one of whom spoke rather good English. I had been talking about the situation, about the city of Bukhara, and we spoke about lots of other stuff, when it turned out at the very end that he probably didn't understand quite as much as he spoke: As they brought us back to the plane and we boarded again, he asked me why we're back in the plane, why we can't just leave Tashkent airport, and was rather surprised when I repeated what the pilot and me had been telling a number of times: We are not in Tashkent, but in fact some 600 kilometres away.
Short flight to Tashkent, where I managed to apply all my Tashkent Airport Strategy and get out first, by taking the best position in the bus to get to passport control, by being the only person who had prepared the customs declaration in the plane, and of by having only hand luggage. Turned out: My poor driver had been waiting around for hours...
Leaving Riga on a flight scheduled for 18:35, arriving in Tashkent after 8 in the morning local time. Whoo. Time for some sleep.
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