Depending on your dormitory and the staff that operates it, your tour
of the dorm might trump all other experiences for comic effect, but a
fat, blonde, chainsmoking retired civil engineer showing you the
kitchen, wash room, shower and bathrooms, explaining the rules, where to
smoke, where not to smoke (while smoking in said off-limits locations),
etc etc....
Visiting the visa office for the first time is at least as ridiculous.
They give you just enough information to complete various tasks, like an easter egg hunt; one or two at a time, go here, go there, pay for this. Go to this office, come back. Go here, pay this. Come back. Literally all of these tasks can be performed in a quarter mile radius from one another in a single trip. Yet you are given them piecemeal, over the course of at least an hour. Because the different offices don't coordinate a "welcome package" with a checklist and a map. You just wing it. Even people well versed in Russian have had no luck getting it all done in one go. You're destined visit the same bank 2 or 3 times in a single day, and they never take your black matte photos you took at CVS the night before you left for Russia because the foreign office's website told you to.
I've tried since the very first days of my life in Russia to remember how many times I went to the bank that day, how long I sat in the office waiting for them to print out paperwork and stamp documents. But even on the very following day my mind was foggy and fails me. I'm not sure anybody remembers...
Visiting the visa office for the first time is at least as ridiculous.
They give you just enough information to complete various tasks, like an easter egg hunt; one or two at a time, go here, go there, pay for this. Go to this office, come back. Go here, pay this. Come back. Literally all of these tasks can be performed in a quarter mile radius from one another in a single trip. Yet you are given them piecemeal, over the course of at least an hour. Because the different offices don't coordinate a "welcome package" with a checklist and a map. You just wing it. Even people well versed in Russian have had no luck getting it all done in one go. You're destined visit the same bank 2 or 3 times in a single day, and they never take your black matte photos you took at CVS the night before you left for Russia because the foreign office's website told you to.
I've tried since the very first days of my life in Russia to remember how many times I went to the bank that day, how long I sat in the office waiting for them to print out paperwork and stamp documents. But even on the very following day my mind was foggy and fails me. I'm not sure anybody remembers...
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