Author: Rauf Aliev

January 02 2016, 21:35

Day 1. Checked into Marriott Residence Inn Vienna. Went to Walmart for groceries. Below are quite mundane details, in case anyone is interested.

Hotel. The room includes not just standard beds, TVs, and internet but also: a dishwasher, grill/microwave, huge refrigerator, coffee filter machine, full set of dishes, toaster, iron, and an electric stove. It’s quite livable:) In the next few days, I’ll start looking for an apartment for February.

Groceries. Among other things, I bought an omelet kit (breakfast will be provided by the hotel in the morning, but caution doesn’t hurt:) Some prices: a dozen eggs – $2.68, a gallon (3.78L) of 2% milk – $3.39, sunflower oil is practically not sold, among the inexpensive and common varieties available is canola oil, at $2.74 for 1.41L. Four tomatoes cost me $4.12 – I still can’t quite understand why. The price was $1.98 per pound. On all listed prices, you need to add about 5% tax to the bill.

Cell service. A typical price for those who need it quick and with minimum hassle – $10 once for a SIM card with a paperwork kit and $45 per month.

January 02 2016, 17:49

This year I have the longest birthday ever. It started 21 hours ago by the alarm clock in Moscow, and it will end in 7 hours in a village in Washington.

Exactly a year ago at this time I was walking through San Francisco – it was my first trip to the States. That was the other end of the country.

I activated Roamer, so from tomorrow I can calmly make calls to my Moscow number: the cost of connection will be just over 8 rubles per minute. And outgoing calls to Russia will cost 4 rubles per minute.