Standing in airport in San Diego, I began to wonder exactly how long it was going to take to get to city of Chita in Siberia. The combination of a vodka hangover, three flights, one train ride and a jump over international date line didn’t help. At first glance, it looked like a total of two days, which wasn’t bad for going to other side of earth.

I should have paid more attention in math.

The itinerary for getting from San Diego to Chita read like this:

1.Fly from San Diego to Seattle.

2.Meet charity representative and other professor.

3.Fly from Seattle to Anchorage.

4.Fly from Anchorage on Aeroflot [gulp] to Khabarovsk, Russia.

5.Take train from Khabarovsk to Chita.

How bad could it be? Very, very, very bad. Did I mention “bad”?

Day 1

The flight to Seattle was no problem. I met Tom Dickinson, founder of Siberian Intercultural Bridges, but we couldn’t find other teacher. Turns out flight to Anchorage wasn’t till next morning, so it didn’t really appear to be a problem. Around midnight, our attitude changed and we had written off teacher.

Day 2

One stop on your itinerary should include a trip to Longwood Gardens and Brandywine River Museum. Both are within ten minutes of each other. You could easily spend anywhere from a half to a whole day just exploring these two places. Longwood Gardens is located in historic Brandywine Valley of southeastern Pennsylvania (PA) and northern Delaware (DE).

Pierre S. du Pont developed Longwood Gardens (sometimes called DuPont Gardens) back in 1906. Today, with hundreds of employees and volunteers keeping Longwood beautiful, it's a delight. Over 1,000 acres of indoor and outdoor gardens with over 11,000 different varieties of plants, breathtaking fountains, and lots of events will captivate you. Longwood is so popular that it attracts over 900,000 visitors annually from all over world. There's everything from kid's programs to concerts and gardening demos. Their world-renowned fireworks displays will make you cheer and clap with delight.

Longwood has more fountains than any other garden in United States. Their fountains have been compared to stately water displays in Europe. This should come as no surprise because Pierre du Pont was amazingly passionate about fountains and water. He created 3 totally different fountain gardens and included an assortment of smaller water displays. Some of these fountains have been either restored and even enlarged on to expand on his original designs. The folks must be doing something right because more and more people come to visit these historic fountain shows.