Countdown to Russia: Day 19. Another spanner in the works.

Am on a tight schedule this morning, but things mostly go according to plan. Make it from my sister's place to the Russian consulate before it even opens. Of course, the passport section does not open on time, but the woman who dishes out the passports is nice, whereas the one who accepts passport-related paperwork is a complete harpy. No nasty surprises: everything seems to be in order and they even got my former surname right.

Get my British passport back from the Mongolian embassy. The procedure takes seconds, since I'm the only person there. I then sprint for the Kensington High St tube and make it to Chancery Lane in time for my Chinese visa application appointment. Events take an unexpected turn when I submit Steve's paperwork alongside mine; the girl behind the counter informs me that he can't apply for a visa yet, since he's a journalist, and for some absurd reason they don't allow members of the media to apply more than a month before the date they wish to enter China. Explaining that he works for a humble local paper and is on holiday makes absolutely no difference. She tells me that I may bring his paperwork back when I collect my passport on Thursday.

Call Steve: "There's a spanner in the works and you're the spanner." Steve has to rearrange his time off work. I'm amused because it's not my paperwork that's causing trouble for a change.

Get my first tick-borne encephalitis jab at the Nomad clinic at Russel Square. The nurse tries to talk me into getting a polio booster, but when I glance at her computer screen, it only talks of a polio outbreak in Tajikistan, so I figure that unless I run into some sick Tajiks, I should be okay.

Back in Cambridge, I try to book the Ulan-Ude-Ulan Bator train and the Ulan Bator-Beijing train directly with Russian rail, but they're having none of it. Am told to go and buy the tickets from the nearest ticket office. And no, their website does not allow you to book tickets online. First World country, my fat fanny, as the Americans would say.

Finally try to book the tickets with Steve via Real Russia, the middleman with the 25% markup. Humbug. We'll know shortly whether there's any availability of whether we'll be stuck in Ulan-Ude forever. I absolutely must book accommodation tomorrow.

Look into Leonard Cohen tickets at the Kremlin. Can't believe that some Russians pay 30,000 roubles ($1000) for the first few rows. In fact, all the tickets are pricier than they would be here. Originally, I put the concert down as a 'maybe', but who am I kidding? The words 'afford' and 'can't' are simply not in my vocabulary and this may well be Cohen's last tour, so I will sell whatever's left of my soul to be at the Kremlin Palace on October 7th.  

Am at that stage in my work where I'm beginning to really loathe the Chile chapter. Progress is slow and all the maps have to be submitted in the next few days. It's not the end of the world if the editing is not finished before the end of the year, since the text won't be going to the printers before the end of January, but my workload, post-Russia, will be tremendous, so it's in my interests to get as much done now as possible.