Moscow.

Hey errybody.

I'm now in Moscow.  To be more exact, I'm in McDonald's where there is free WiFi and expensive ice cream that takes a lot of work and rubles to get.  I don't actually have that much time on this free WiFi session (only half hour) which always goes so fast, a half-hour is really nothing.  Honestly.

If we go back in time a few days, I was on a plane flying from Seattle to Washington D.C., and there were two larger ladies squishing me between them, and then a short time later I was in the very back of a plane sitting next to a Russian girl from Novosibirsk flying over the Atlantic.  I tried out my broken Russian on her and only succeeded in making her think that I speak better Russian than I actually do, because I didn't really understand much of what she said.  Some of you know what that's like-- a lot of nodding and smiling and repeated phrases over and over again.

Anyway my feelings were a little mixed up.  I will not lie that I was nervous and had absolutely no idea what to really expect when I got to Moscow.  And our flight took us directly over Ireland where my sisters were romping around, Wales, and England-- and I couldn't really quell the desire to just grab a parachute and jump out of the plane right then.  I didn't, obviously.  But England was calling to me.

Instead I just stayed in the plane and tried to sleep.  Possibly I slept for an hour total on the flight.  All the movies sucked too, so I basically just stared at the map of our flight and/or listened to A Pair of Blue Eyes on my iPod.

Then I got to Moscow all of a sudden and me and a few other dudes on our program were met by a very sketchy-looking, twitchy dude named Andrei in a fedora.  Andrei turned out to be a pretty fun guy, with his Russian/British accent and very strange humor.  At any rate he got us where we needed to be.  My landlady is great.  She not only cooks great, but she is a wonderful person and very patient with me.  I love my room.  It is classic Russian, with a big old rug on the wall.  Anyway I think I'm running out of time.

Both last night and the night before I literally passed out on my bed, in full clothing with contacts still in.  Yesterday my sandals were still on.  Jet lag hits me hard, BUT it has successfully turned around my schedule so that I got up willingly around 7 o'clock each morning, which is absolutely unprecedented in my life.  I knew that the only way I could ever get myself to be a morning person would be to trick myself into it.  Hopefully I can keep this up.

Yesterday I went to church and worked up a pretty good head ache trying to understand everything.  Afterwards I went to Red Square with some of my friends and I was literally taken aback at the sight of St Basil's.  It really is such a striking building.  I will provide some pictures later, but not now.

Luckily we were leaving Red Square right when a thunderstorm of EPIC proportions hit in full force.  There is absolutely NO cover on Red Square.  It is a huge open square and if we'd been out in the middle of it we would have been SOAKED.  Luckily we were close enough to a McDonald's to find shelter from the downpour.  People were booking it towards the McDonald's and we were soon pressed together like rush-hour in the metro.  A fun experience on a Sunday afternoon.

Well that's about it for now.  Nothing exciting has happened today, so there is nothing worth reporting.

My feelings are a little different now.  I am already much more comfortable with everything, the situation, the people, and I think it'll be an awesome experience no matter what.

Thanks for reading this travel log.  Pictures and shorter blogs will come soon.  So stay tuned.