Monday, September 8, 2008

Getting the feel for things...

Sorry, no good pictures this time as I didn't take my camera around with me over the weekend or today, but I felt that I should put something up in case people checked - didn't want any disappointed readers.

I got into Moscow Friday morning around 10am and when the plane landed there was applause - this also happened when I came here on vacation in June and it's a Russian tradition apparently. I feel like going into Chris Rock's comedy here, "You can't take credit for something you're supposed to do" - it's along the same lines of applauding for an ordinary event. Customs went smooth as I was near the front of the plane and a driver was waiting for me at the airport. Traffic in Moscow must always be bad, because around 11:15am on a majore highway (4 lanes in each direction), traffic was at a stand still and all the Russians were out of the cars, smoking cigarettes, and some even seemed like they decided to just walk wherever they were going.

Friday night I went out for drinks with some of the expats as they were celebrating a departure of one of there own. I thought it wouldn't be a long night, just getting in on the flight, but I ended up being out until 4am, no complaints at all, just really tired the next day (and hungover). Saturday I took it easy and went to visit Jim, Carrie and their new baby which was great - made me feel close to home and a relaxed environment; if they play their cards wrong they could be temporarily adopting a 26 year-old as well.

Sunday I just explored the area I'm staying in a bit with some long walks in the afternoon. I decided that I should do some grocery shopping so I'd have something to eat. The grocery store in itself is fairly normal, but with a decent walk back from the place it's hard to carry the bags, especially if buying a decent amount of stuff. I saw people using these little fold up carts to get their stuff home, but since I didn't have one I thought that I could use the following instead:


Yes, my carry-on roller bag. I thought my big one would stand out too much, so this one did the trick. I should have thought of taking a picture with it full of my groceries at the time, but maybe I'll do that some other time.



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