Moscow!

I've arrived in Moscow and have had a very busy day and a half. I ventured out last night to a shopping complex where there was a grocery store and many different other kinds of stores. There, I got myself set up with a SIM card for my phone, some Russian money, and some basic groceries.

Today, I needed to go to language link to get some paperwork started to be processed. I had to ride the bus by myself for the first time, but fortunately I was riding it all the way to the last stop. I still wasn't really sure if I had arrived at my stop, and then all of a sudden I looked around and there was no one left, so I realized it was time to get off. After that, I met a few other people who are also going to be teacher-interns. We spent the day exploring parts of the city. I think we visited part of the Kremlin, but then we definitely went to the World War II museum, which, told from a Russian perspective was very interesting.

Later, we went to Gorky Park, which was my favorite place so far. It's a very expansive park by the river in Moscow. There are pillow/mattresses around to relax on, an amphitheater, ping pong tables and a beach volleyball set-up, and roller skate rentals. I'm attaching some pictures of the day.
Spending tomorrow meeting the rest of the interns and starting training on Monday.

More soon!

The Bolshoi Theater

Some impersonators having a meaningful conversation.

Monument outside of the WWII museum

WWII museum

Hall of Memory and Sorrow. There are brass pendants hanging from the ceiling with crystals representing tears.

Comrade Lenin, in his best underwear model pose.

I <3 Moscow.

Couch/Mattresses in Gorky Park.

The view from my apartment.

Woahhh we're halfway there

Actually, distance-wise, I'm a lot more than halfway. I have successfully made it to Stockholm and am now killing some time in the airport trying to stay awake; it's morning here but my body thinks its the middle of the night. 

I don't have a lot more to report, but I also don't have a lot more to do in the next couple of hours and I have access to the Internet for at least another hour, so I guess I'll just keep blogging.

Although my layover in Sweden was mostly just the way my flights worked out, my arrival in this country (if you count airports as arrivals, which I usually don't, but maybe this time I will) means that I have visited every country from which I have known ancestors. England, ireland, french canada, and sweden. Now this list is nowhere near as long as that of many people, and I'm still far from an expert on any one of those places, but even just the process of traveling to all of these places makes me marvel a bit. I am sure that my great great grandmothers journey to the us from Sweden took a lot longer than 8 hours, and she probably didn't have inflight movies to pass the time. I guess what I think is the most impressive is that people have been traveling around the world, just like I'm doing, for hundreds and even thousands of years. My very existence is based on these adventures. Compared with moving to the states (or colonies) from Sweden or England or everywhere else, my brief trip to Moscow is kind of mundane, and somehow I take comfort in that.

PS I promise all my posts won't be so introspective, I slept for max. 45 minutes on the plane.

PPS here is a picture of my breakfast once I got to the airport, because it was too good not to share.

All my bags are packed...almost

Well the time has almost arrived! In just over 24 hours I will be leaving for the airport, from there I'll hop on an 8-hour red-eye to Stockholm. After spending a few hours at the airport in the ABBA museum and eating meatballs (I hope), I'll fly another short two hours to Moscow! I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm anxiously trying to remember Russian grammar, soak up a last bit of American culture, and fit everything I might need for the next ten months into just two suitcases, but mostly I'm ready. Ready to start a new adventure. Ready to replace the train of goodbyes that has started with my last year of college and seems to have continued all through the summer with some hellos. Ready for whatever the next 10 months has in store for me.

I hope you will all enjoy following me here over the course of the next (almost) year. I'll try to post more often than I did in Madagascar to post pictures (with captions) and to keep the grammar stories that only I think are funny to a minimum.

До Москвы (until Moscow)!