Yes, I’ve been home for a week and a half now, and I have nothing. I have no job. I have no money. I have no plane ticket to Russia for the summer. These three things are all related. Without a job, I will get no money. Without money, I will continue to doubt whether I can afford to go to Russia at all, and continue to freak out periodically.

Actually, not freak out, but get depressed because I’m obviously going to end up living in a cardboard box somewhere. Why? Oh, mainly pride. I could have a job, I’m quite sure, if I did not categorically refuse to work in fast food, or at a gas station. Or a supermarket. What strange personality trait has made me willing to slime fish, or clean hotel rooms, but still adamant that I will not sell gas or burgers?

In the meantime, while I consider my meager employment opportunities, and kick myself for not having done any emergency training in high school — if I was an EMT, oh, if I was a fire fighter! — I’m sitting on hold with Aeroflot. How does one get to Vladivostok (VVO) from Alaska? Apparently no one does, because no airline flies that way. How does one get to Vladivostok from Washington, DC (IAD) or New York (JFK)? Well, I’m pretty sure you have to get to Moscow (SVO) first. There are many airlines which will get you from the East Coast to Moscow, but once in Russia, how shall I continue on to the Far East? Aeroflot doesn’t have muzak, it’s just silence on the line, like I was disconnected, which I was once, but I didn’t know until the phone started beeping.

Originally my travel plans were simple, if expensive. I would give Korean Air $1400, fly from Anchorage to Seoul to Vladivostok, and back again a month later. But then there was SARS, and my contact in Vlad wrote me that that route probably wouldn’t work, because their airport was going to stop accepting flights from SE Asia. She suggested it would be better/cheaper to fly through Moscow.

Ah yes, the long way around. In the book I just returned to the library, it said that during the 18th century the quickest way to get to the Far East from Moscow was to take a ship across the Atlantic, a train across the US, and another ship across the Pacific. Funny how now the quickest way across the Pacific may be to circumnavigate the globe in the other direction.

Still, I’m not giving up on trying to fly more directly. There are flights from Anchorage to Magadan, which is several hundred miles up the coast from Vladivostok. Unfortunately, such flights only go once a week, on Fridays according to a travel agent here. My contact in Vlad wrote me that yes, there are flights between Vlad and Magadan, but they are only once a week. On Mondays. No idea what airline that is, either. So if I found someone to spend the weekend with in Magadan… and the working week on the way back…

I don’t yet have a visa, but I think that itinerary is getting to complicated. Where would I stay? Transportation to and from the airport? My high school Russian teacher is from Magadan, I feel like it could be arranged, but it would cost more than it would be worth.

If I ever get through to Aeroflot (I hope I’m still holding with them… it’s hard to tell) and get some price quotes from IAD-SVO, JFK-SVO, SVO-VVO, JFK-VVO, etc, and see how that compares to whatever other options I can scrape up.

There is a tourist company which does charter flights between Alaska and the Far East. (Damnit! disconnected. Redialing. This is not fun.) I called them just before Memorial Day weekend, but the person to talk to was out. If I get cut from talking to Aeroflot again, I’ll try calling them. But I want to know how much Aeroflot would charge me, so I can compare…

If I fly to Vlad from the East Coast, then I won’t come home again before I leave for my semester program. In fact, talking with my roommate the other day, I might not even come back across the Atlantic. I could return from Vlad as far as Helsinki and meet the exchange group there. I would be comfortable chilling in the Helsinki airport… Or just in Helsinki… probably more so than in DC or NYC.

Got email this morning from Laurel, a lovely rugger from my third year Russian class. She’s interning at the American Embassy in St. Pete’s, is there already and getting more done than I am. She too has online reports of travels, called simply itinerant. You know, if you find this sort of thing interesting…

Oh yay! A human voice at Aeroflot. JFK-VVO is $1090 + $47 tax. Interesting. And she said JFK or IAD to SVO is $888, and SVO to VVO is $680. Unfortunately, I don’t foresee getting a JFK-SVO ticket for less than $410, so maybe Aeroflot all the way is the best route to take. But I’ll still call that charter company.

The charter company seems to be more of an international sort of travel agency, and a nice sounding man there told me that really I wanted to fly through Seoul, but when I explained that that wasn’t feasible, he said he’d call the Magadan Airline and talk with them, and call me back. Perhaps he will have a Magic Solution ™ for me.