From Chelyabinsk to Las Cruces

   Next big journey we had only one year later. It was long long trip from our native Chelyabinsk to hot Las Cruces, NM, USA. We were going to the new country and we didn't know about it at all. We arrived to US in October,1,1997.

• First, we flew from Chelyabinsk to Moscow and spent one night at our friend's house. We were with my mother there, she helped us a lot. During that time we were worrying about trip to airport, about our visas, passports, late airplane and etc. Next morning we left this place and arrived to Sheremetievo 1 airport. We filled the custom declaration with difficulties trying to understand what we should actually declare. After long waiting hours we said good-bye to my mother and entered a free zone. It was very sad to leave her alone in Moscow and we didn't know when we'll see her again ...
• Actually at this point we left our country. After the very serious passport control we boarded our plane finally. We were flying 12 hours at Douglas to Los Angeles, it was very relaxing time. The airplane was big and we watched 3 movies for free during flight.
• After one hour in the custom's queue we entered to LA, the air was so wet and soft comparing to our russian one. First minutes we were lost there but then we called our parents in Chelyabinsk and found policeman who showed a way to Southwest airlines terminal. We bought tickets and spent another 3 hours on the plane (this time I just was sleeping). Even the flights were comfortable but I was so tired after such many events in the one long long day.
• We arrived to El Paso at evening and spent one night at El Paso's hotel, but our goal was Las Cruces. It's small town 45 miles from El Paso. So we were delivered by shuttle service to Greyhound station where we bought a tickets to Las Cruces on a bus.  The bus was very comfortable and we enjoyed New Mexico nature. There we caught a bus to NMSU and ... at last we were near NMSU. Really the last part of our way from bus's stop to New Science hall was the most difficult because we were tired, with 2 big bags. Actually whole trip took 3 days!