In Moscow

Greetings from Moscow everyone!  I'm not sure whether to say Good Morning or Good Evening right now.  My body's clock is very messed up right now.  More on that later.

We are VERY thankful to say that we arrived with little to no events.  Our 11 hour Delta flight from Atlanta to Moscow was surprising wonderful.  (Wonderful being on a relative scale).  Our plane had these cool touch screen tvs on each seat which allowed us to select from around 12 different movies.  We took notice that (if we get the same type of plane going back) they have some kid movies that can be watched in Russian language.  Maybe Zac will watch "Bee Movie" in Russian???  We're not really holding our breath...

The big news is that OUR LUGGAGE CAME WITH US this time!  Yea!  By the time we got through all the flights, Katie and I were very psyched up that things were going so well.  Traveling here for a second time has been significantly less stressful already.  It's not really like we're "Russian Travel Experts" or anything, but everything we've done so far has been a repeat of trip one.  (Same airport, same hotel, etc.)

I was commenting to Katie that because of my (very small) knowledge of Russian language this time around, I find myself understanding quite a bit more.  It's not really the words so much, it's the sounds.... if that makes sense.  The language doesn't "scratch" on my ears as much this time.  I feel like I'm merely listening to more of my Russian language CD that I have in my car.  Just an observation I guess.

At the airport, we found 3 other adoptive couples from CHI and EAC plus we've met up with D&A.  Of the 3 new couples, all of them were on trip #1.  They are all going to different regions, so our adventures will most likely go part ways from here.  Nevertheless, we had quite a little American "party" going on by the Passport booth.  

We checked in at the hotel and although it was only a little after noon, we immediately crawled in bed and fell asleep.  Probably not the best thing to do with the whole jet lag thing going on, but we have decided that our philosophy is:  Sleep when your tired.  Sleep when you can.  We just made up this new found rule, so we'll see how it goes.

So apparently, we slept for 2 hours and now here we are.  It's about 4:30pm Moscow time.  It feels like morning.  I'm ready from breakfast... I mean, lunch..... I mean, dinner? .... I guess.... something.

Anyway, 2 other random funnies:

1.  When we arrived in Moscow we immediately met up with our translator (Tanyja).  We exchanged hello's and I began showing off my Russian.  "Zztrasta-wi-tya!" I said.  (Hello)  Whereupon, she says, "kahk-da-lah?" (How are you?)  and I meant to respond "Ha-ra-show" (fine) but unfortunately, I said "Hol-og-na" which means "cold".  Which really didn't make sense, because we were inside the airport and as anyone who has been to Russia knows, they keep their buildings really really hot!  So she looked at me like I was an idiot.  But then we all laughed because I realized my mistake.

2.  After my 2 hour nap, I went down to the front desk to find an internet cable.  While in the elevator, a Russian woman mumbles something to me in Russian.  Deep down inside, I'm actually proud of this because this must mean I don't look "too American".  (i.e. Big white tenis shoes, baseball hat, etc)  I proudly tell her "I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian" in the Russian language.  But she goes on and mumbles something again.  I politely respond in the identical way, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian"  (Yeez -ve -nee-tee  Ya-ni Ga-Vai-yo-Pa-Ruski)  She finally blurts out:  "I just asked you which one is the main floor?  I mean, do you at least speak English or something?!?"

Ahhh... It's good to be back in the USSR.