Taxi "Service"

Late last week I had a disaster of a day; nothing went smoothly. And to top it off, I was sick! I’m still coughing, sniffling and sneezing, but definitely on the mend now.

So one of my favorite activities here in Moscow is Zumba. So FUN! It’s offered through the AWO twice a week and is held in the US Ambassador’s Residence because the Ambassador's wife is a member of the AWO and she volunteered the space (pretty cool). It’s a great "organized" activity with other ex-pat women, a nice way to get some exercise, and perhaps most importantly, I find that participating in it requires so much concentration that, for a solid hour, I forget about any and everything that's bothering me. I always leave feeling much more optimistic! I may do a separate post exclusively on Zumba, so I’ll leave it at that.

So even though I felt terrible when I woke up, I figured I'd rally and go....maybe doing a little exercise would "flush" out some of the bad stuff etc etc. The class is located in a part of town that’s not too convenient to any one Metro that is near our apartment. If I take the metro, I have to switch and it ends up being just a couple stops with more transfers than anything. It’s just one of those places that’s more convenient by car for us. Unfortunately we recently had to fire our driver (long story – maybe I’ll get into that another time) so Scott had his assistant arrange a taxi for me.

Sign #1 that things were not getting off to a smooth start: Scott texts me to say that the first taxi company they tried was “fully booked.” Nice.
But, we persevered and were able to book a taxi from the 2^nd company. Okay.

Sign #2 that things were not going smoothly: Initially when I went out to get in the taxi, I couldn't find it; our building has a bunch of exits so it's never clear where someone in a car will be waiting. This was annoying b/c the class (obviously) has a set time, and I really didn't want to be late. Little did I know.

Well I did finally find the car and off we went. Scott’s assistant had already told the taxi company the address of where I was going so I didn't really say much. When we started out, I noticed right away we were going in a different direction than usual but I thought, well, this is a different driver and this is his job, so leave him be...(this was probably Sign #3... and the point at which I should have just gone home). Where do we end up? The American Embassy, which is not at all the same as the Ambassador’s Residence! Argh!! When I told the driver, "Nyet" (No) and gave him the proper address, he just gave me a blank look and literally had NO IDEA where it was!!

I tried to bring it up on my phone and OF COURSE, for some inane reason at that moment, the internet / maps / data on my phone wasn't working (and this taxi driver didn't speak Englsih, OF COURSE)!!

Next I tried to pull it up on his phone but he only had cyrillic letters on the keyboard which made it painfully slow for me to type, and I had no idea if I was spelling it correctly. Ever so thoughtfully, the driver pulls out an old dog-earred road atlas – without opening it to central Moscow -- and dumps it into my lap: "Go ahead, you find it!'

So I start flipping pages, trying to figure out where to begin looking; you know how those atlases have the 10,000 foot view and the 1 foot view and every neighborhood in between? And mind you, we have 8 minutes to get to class at this point. EIGHT! I had allocated 45 minutes to get there and we’d already been driving around to the wrong place for over 35 minutes. 

“Just a total cluster,” as Scott would say.

For the record, much later, after I’d already called Scott and his admin told the driver where we really needed to go, I did find the right page in the atlas. :-) Really, one of the more irritating parts of the experience was that the admin was the source of the problem: she’d given the taxi company the wrong address and when I told her the correct street / address (I knew the address, just not the route), she, too, had no idea about the street or building I was talking about! While I had her on the phone, I made her look it up online and then Ihanded the phone to the driver so she could clarify in Russian. But wouldn't you think that a taxi SERVICE would make it its business to really know the ins and outs of its home city? This is Russia!

When the driver finally understood where we needed to go and I saw we were correctly en route, I looked at my watch and saw that we were going to be at least 25 minutes late to class. It had now been an hour and ten minutes of back and forth with the admin, the taxi company and the maps and nobody understanding anyone! UGHHHH.

We were probably a block or two away from the Ambassador’s residence when I just decided it was really not appropriate for me to walk into class THAT late. It’s just rude and disruptive and I didn't feel right about it.

So I told the driver I just wanted to go home (in Russian). He just kept saying,“Moment, moment…” and gesturing toward the building. Yes, Mr. Taxi Driver (I’m sure his name was either Oleg, Sasha or Sergei), I see we are only 45 seconds from the destination, but you get the booby prize for getting me there 25 minutes late! So I just repeated for him to take me home.

But boy was I pissed. I didn’t feel good, no one knew where we were going, I couldn't communicate properly and now I had missed my class!

He finally understood (read: actually listened to what I said) when I wouldn’t get out of the car. Then he got pissed! He started grumbling and asked me “Why? Why?” (in Russian) and shooting me dirty looks. I just shrugged and pointed to my watch, to indicate that yes, we had arrived at the proper destination, but alas, we were just too late.

I really should have just stayed in bed that day. When we got to my building, I paid him ½ of what the meter indicated since the driver certainly didn’t deliver on his end of the bargain. Of course this made him grumble even more, but I just got out and didn’t look back.

The crowning glory of this wonderful morning was arriving home and finding that Siena had scraped off a bunch of leather from our couch in a new spot (she's already done it in a few other areas but we've been trying to limit the damage to just those few). AAAAHHHH!!! Thanks a lot, Siena. Some days you just need to throw in the towel and move on!