Fishermen; Fishermen everywhere.

I was told I'd be picked up by the woman who's hosting me at her B&B in Yelizovo (Martha, for future reference) along with other fishermen coming in.

After staying in a crappy hotel in Anchorage for a piddly 3 hours of sleep, I went to the Ted Stevens International terminal for my flight to Petropavlovsk. I figured I should look for some fishermen and we'd go find Martha together after the plane ride.

There was exactly one ticketing counter open at 5:30am, and it was for my flight. And literally every single other person in the line except me was a fisherperson (lots of women too).

All of them.

I asked around if anyone was with Explore Kamchatka, but everyone said no. I ended up chatting with several groups of people, who were interested in making sure I found my group. Everyone was so nice! And coffee at Ted Stevens was $1 per cup with free refills. True story.

I was really nervous about going through customs, since I've heard horror stories and if you're not super fluent it can be hair-raising. The verbatim impression I got from several people who'd been to the Kamchatka before was "no one gives a shit". Well, alright. At least there's not dudes with guns.

The flight was nice (Yakutia was a really nice airline!), but once we got to passport control, it became clear that they didn't give a shit about TOURISTS. Folks with three year multi-entry visas were suspicious. My heart almost stopped when the passport customs lady stopped me and asked "Вы говорите по-русски?" (Do you speak Russian?) I answered yes, and feared what would come next, because it was clear she had serious questions for me she didn't know how to ask in English. Luckily, it was a question I understood AND it was about a document I was told I didn't need but I brought with me on a whim anyhow. Thank goodness I did, since she furiously typed stuff into the computer before stamping me and letting me through.

But I got through. I was worried about finding Martha since my phone didn't have any signal and I couldn't even text her.

I found Martha, and several people who said they weren't with her while I was in the terminal at Anchorage turned out to be with her. Rrrr. Part of me hopes they felt bad. I suppose it's a good idea to have a picture of my face as my Gmail icon since I'm pretty sure that's how she recognized me.

Then we were off! I was put into The Orange Room (totally not by my request, but by fortune), and I'm trying to get myself ready for the next day, when I had to go register my visa.

Whew.