Greetings from Moscow ~ поздравления из Москвы

Well, this has been an experience so far, and we have only been here a day. On Monday afternoon, as soon as we got out of our apartment to meet the driver to JFK we found out that our buildings elevators were not working and we were going have to drag our luggage down 6 flights of stairs. That would not have been fun. Thankfully an elevator magically appeared and we were on our way. We spent some down time in the lounge at the airport. The flight to Paris was uneventful. Air France business class serves really good food and I was able to get about 3 hours of sleep. I also watched Sex in the City movie which I hadn’t seen yet. Mike barely slept. He watched The Family Stone, Tropic Thunder and Sideways. We arrived in Paris on time and were thankful to hear that our connecting flight to Moscow was in the same terminal. Little did we know that the same terminal meant 2 moving walkways, a 2 minute tram ride, and going through security all over again. We ran to make our connection in time. It was the slowest line we have ever been in. French security only had 2 x-ray machines open at 6:30 this morning and huge lines. They didn’t care- going about their ‘I am French and cooler than you’ business. We finally got to our gate and only had to wait 5 minutes before boarding. We were happy about that but the plane was old and not so comfortable. We taxied out to the runway for what seemed like 40 minutes. As soon as we were ready for take off, one of the passengers became sick and asked to go back to the gate. So 40 minutes later we were dropping him back at the gate and taxiing out again. Once in the air we were fine and we both got a little more sleep. Looking out the window during landing, and seeing white snow blanket the ground on a forest barren trees, really felt like what I thought landing in Russia would feel like. Mike said it looked just like Indy...Flat.

We touched down in Moscow at 1:35 pm Tuesday (we had been traveling since 5:40 Monday night) We were a half hour late and as soon as we got through customs we learned that the flight of the other couple we were meeting was going to be even later and the guy picking us up was not there either. We were now working on ‘Russian Time’! The taxi drivers just milled about outside customs with their cigarettes and signs. Unfortunately they all rolled up their signs and did not seem interested in trying to find their pick-ups. Needless to say, everyone was finally found, and we made our way in a white mini van to the Marriot Courtyard hotel in Moscow city center. It was freezing out and had just stopped snowing. Riding the 30-40 minutes to the hotel seemed just like being on the FDR, LIE and in the Bronx in numerous parts. Just with weird writing on the signs. Once into the city center the buildings and streets feel more like London. It is a very elegant city. We checked into a very nice western style hotel but didn’t have much time to get settled. It was already 4 pm. We found out that the Patriarch of Moscow (like the equivalent of the archbishop of Canterbury) had died last week and today was a holiday of some sort. Lots of stores are closed and the streets are very busy. We ventured out to find the 24 hour grocery store and finally found it on Tverskaya Street. It was a gorgeous building with ornate details, beautiful chandeliers and a gourmet assortment of goodies. I took some pictures. We bought bottled water. We have been told to not drink the water here at all. Not even brush our teeth with it. So we got 3 large bottles as well as Challah and jam for breakfast. We looked at all the vodka and souvenirs for sale but did not buy anything because we had not time. I wish we had time to tour the city and see Red Square. I know we will have a lot of time in Moscow on trip 2 so I will not worry about it now. Running back to the hotel we ate a quick hamburger dinner because we had to meet our coordinator at 7 to hand over documents and her fees. By the time we finished with that we were exhausted. Time for bed. Tomorrow is an exciting day. We will leave Moscow at 7 am to get to Tver to meet our little ones. Tonight I separated out all their clothes and toys and the orphanage donations into smaller bags so we don’t have to bring all of our luggage in to the orphanage. Good night.

Here are photos of the grocery store:

This is dinner on our first night...at the hotel restaurant...after a long 2 days of traveling.