WCC2018, days 2 and 3

I had ordered breakfast from the hostel yesterday, so after my shower I walked into the kitchen and there were my bowl of oatmeal and a plate of crepes on the table, along with bread, butter, cheese, yoghurt and an apple waiting for me. I couldn’t possibly eat it all, so I took what I couldn’t eat along for lunch. The first sessions were off campus. My group met on the platform of one of the subway lines to walk to the Moscow Traffic Management Centre. Holy crap. 3,600,000 cars and trucks pass through Moscow everyday. I won’t borers you with a bunch of numbers. But their traffic cams can detect 25 different traffic violations. Besides all the statistics, the most memorable thing was the official who gave the presentation. His English was so goo, he was correcting the translators. And, he had a sense of humor. You always get the impression that that’s a rarity in Russia. Even the Russian lady from Green Peace who sat next to me commented on it. So Green Peace and I grabbed the subway after the presentation and headed back to the convention center. When I got back I met Valery and we grabbed a couple of the finger sandwiches they were serving for lunch and went up to the lounge to eat. We met a professor there from Turkey. He was saying that he teaches technical engineering at a university near Marmoris. When I asked him about his students, he said that it was about 50/50. About half wanted to improve the environment and slow down climate change and the other half wanted to play video games. I attending the afternoon sessions but they weren’t really that interesting. There was going to be an evening session off-campus, but my cold was getting me down and I decided not to go. I headed back home and stopped at my transfer point for another KFC supper. When I got back to the hostel, the receptionist tried to talk me out of getting registered by the police. The law here is that, if you are a foreigner, every time you stay in a hotel in a different city, the hotel has to register you at the police station. Of course that’s a lot of work for the receptionist and of course she didn’t want to do it. So she had 20 excuses why I shouldn’t bother. I insisted and I won. That would be all I need; get kicked out of the country because I attended a bike conference. The really cool thing about today was that I ran into a German guy who is working in Tatarstan, specifically Kazan. He introduced me to the Tatarstan delegation and these people are super interested in putting bike programs in schools. I immediately texted my boss who was all for it. So I made some great connections for Kazan as well as for Rochester. I didn’t really sleep well because my room was unbearably hot and I could adjust the temperature. Also, I was coughing like crazy. So I was glad that the sessions didn’t start until 10 a.m. on Saturday. I got ready and stopped at a French pastry shop at my transfer point and picked up what looked like a short eclair and a cup of coffee. The thing was chocolate through and through and weighed a ton. It was really filling. The sessions were interesting and informative. But I was sucking on hard candy and drinking water all day because I still felt pretty crappy. I ran into the delegation fdrom Tatarstan again and the lady and I hit it off very well. She even videoed me on a bike while asking me questions. It worked well until my Russian ran out. So it looks as if positive things will be happening this spring with bicycles at Balance-City School. But probably the highlight of the day was meeting Olatunji Oboi Reed from Chicago. He started the Slow Ride there a couple of years ago and now runs a group called Equiticity. This guy really knows his stuff and is a very inspirational young man. Check him out on google or listen to the presentation he gave at the conference on Facebook. This guy is impressive. We had a great conversation and it turns out we have a mutual friend who now lives in Rochester. Boy, the world really is a small place. Everything ended at 4 aNd I headed straight back to the hostel. I couldn’t stand the thought of another KFC, so I stoped at the grocery store and got some microwaveable spaghetti carbonara and some crap salad for dinner. It was another early night but still didn’t sleep all that well. I got up and got ready, packed and checked out at 10. AND, I got my police registration form. I wasn’t leaving without it. I had decided I didn’t want to stand out in this weather with a cold and watch the bike parade. I just wasn’t fit enough. I took the tram to the transfer point and was surprised when the tram driver got out at one point with a long metal bar and switched the tracks manually. Apparently the guys had been cleaning snow away and had left the tracks in the wrong position. I got off at my transfer point and looked all over for a Cafe for a leisurely breakfast. All I could find were stand up places and I didn’t want that, so I ended back up at KFC, with a facsimile of an Egg McMuffin, hash browns and coffee. It was an adequate breakfast. Since I didn’t have to be at the airport until about 5, I decided to visit Leo Tolstoy’s house, which I didn’t get a chance to visit in November when I was in Moscow. It was an easy subway ride and then a 20 minute walk, partially through slushy streets. Walking there, a lot of bike riders came up the sidewalk returning from the winter ride. I heard later from Valery that there had been between 3,000 and 4,000 riders. Great! Nothing stops us! I got to the Tolstoy house, and to show you what. Class act this place is, the booties you have to put over your shoes are leather. But, I can see why they needed them here. The floors were beautiful I laid wood. The house had original furnishing and wac very, very well kept. I was glad I get to see it. I spent a good hour there, walking through the house and the gardens, then went back to the subway station to head for the railway station where I catch the train for the airport. it was great. I calculated my public transportation rides pretty well and only had 18 rubles left on my travel card. I bought my train ticket and the train left at too. I get there 35 minutes later and was even able to figure out how to get my boarding pass from the automatic checking machine. Victory! Now all I had to do was to wait about 3 hours until boarding time. since I hadn’t eaten since the late breakfast, I went to a place that sold baked potatoes. You could load them up with all sorts of toppings, but I was happy just to have butter. And it really tasted good. Then I went down to another place and had a chocolate donut for dessert. I sat down and signed into the WiFi and started to right this all down. Only when I got home did I see that the WiFi had cut out and none of this had been saved. So I’m writing this all for the second time! The plane came late and it was snowing so I was wondering if I would be staying another night in Moscow. But we got in all right and only about 45 minutes late. Sonia ordered me a taxi again and I got back home about 10. I ran over to Sonia’s for a pizza ,and then home and tried to sleep. It least my place wasn’t as hot as the hostel.