My thoughts about waiting in lines...

Where do I begin? For the past almost 5 months, I have been experiencing the craziness of waiting in lines in Russia. I wait in lines at the grocery store, at the cash machines, at passport control, getting on airplanes, at Starbucks (once a week on Wednesday's when I am near one), and numerous other places. After almost 5 months, and finally some insight regarding these lines, I am still finding it very hard to deal with.

Picture this...there is a line at least 10 people long at the grocery store (in every lane, so I have no option not to wait). I am slowly making my way to the front when all of the sudden, two more people get in line a few spots in front of me and start putting their things on the belt to be rung up. No one else in line thinks that this is a problem. Then a woman turns around and says something to me in Russian, and leaves the line. She comes back a few minutes later and gets right back in line in front of me. My original line of 10 people has now ended up being 15 people long and I still haven't bought my groceries. I try my best to avoid these lines by going grocery shopping at 9am, but it never fails, the times that I have to go when it is busier, I pay for it!

Another fun "line" story is the line at passport control when entering this country. This is a somewhat scary experience in and of itself. Sometime there is no line at all (that is a good day) and sometimes the line begins the second you get off the airplane and you are waiting for at least two hours, and then you have to deal with the not so happy looking Russian passport control people. This summer when Burke, Phillip, Merrick and I were coming back from London we had the at least two hour kind of line. Merrick was about to have an emotional explosion (along with me), and we had to deal with a mob (not a line) of people all trying to get into 10 different passport control lines. There is no such thing here as an orderly, calm line that directs people where to go and is divided somehow by ropes or gates. As soon as one line looked promising, everyone who noticed ran to that line, and that continues until everyone gets to the front of the line. This is how people get around in cars too. There is no order whatsoever. Each person for themselves. Crossing the street is especially scary, pedestrians NEVER have the right of way!

So I was at an American Women's Org meeting the other day, and our guest speaker was an American woman that moved to Moscow permanently in 1967. She never moved back...and I thought that the lines that I waited in were bad. Her stories finally gave me perspective on why people "wait" in lines like they do here. Back 20, 30, 40 years ago, people would have to wait in lines down streets just to get bread, milk, and other necessities. The only way they could make it through those lines was if they told others in line behind them to save their spots so that they could get other things done, go to the bathroom, etc. And if another line happened to come open, they had to rush to get to that line, or it might mean not eating that day. SO, I am trying very hard to realize that what I call craziness is the just the remnants of Soviet times. But, oh, how sometimes I wish I could just say "NO, go to the end of the line", in Russian, but then I would have to deal with someone realizing that I had an American accent, and that could open up a whole new can of worms if I said it to the wrong person!