Moscow

We arrived in Moscow yesterday safe and sound. Leaving the families at the Vlad Inn and Irina and Lana was a bit more difficult than we had expected. However at the airport we had a minor disagreement with the check-in person and that helped us get very excited to be headed a little closer to home. Somehow we got charged for our bags being overweight. Keep in mind they were not overweight on the way to Vlad. We now have one more paying passenger, none of our gifts, less food, less toiletries, etc… and we get charged like 1800 rubles (about $55) and then they were trying to say they couldn’t give us change. Ugh!!!! We also had requested bulkhead seats so that we would have more room with Blake. They told us the plane was full and that the seats were taken. Ok – so we were bracing ourselves for a crowed cramped flight. As we are searching for our seats, we were very pleasantly surprised that we in fact did have the bulkhead seats and had a lot of room. It was a blessing let me tell ya. As you can see in these pictures Blake did just fine on the plane. He was easy to entertain and such a good boy.


When we arrived in Moscow we were picked up in a hatchback car. No kidding – we had four big bags, our carry-on bags, a stroller, coats, a driver, a translator, and the three of us. We get packed in and head out. The translator said we would be going to the Holiday Inn Sokolinki. What? We were told by CHI that we were staying in the Marriot downtown. The people in Moscow didn’t get that information and so they put us at the Holiday Inn. At this point we were thinking… whatever - we don’t care at this point just get us there please. We then get stuck in major traffic. About an hour into the ride I start laughing so hard I was literally crying. I just looked at Justin in this little car surrounded by bags, headed to a hotel we knew nothing about, it was hot, it smelled like fumes, we really have no official business until Monday because of the holiday, and our internal clocks we set to Vlad time which at that point was about midnight. When you put all that together the only thing to do was to laugh, and that is exactly what I did. We did get checked in and then had to sit with the translator to fill out our paperwork for the U.S. Embassy. Since they are U.S. forms of course you have to write your name and address like a hundred times. It was now 2 a.m. on our ‘internal clocks’ and I could barely think. We did sleep well though once we got all settled.

Today was the May 1st holiday. We took the Metro downtown to walk around Red Square. We got some great pictures. We don’t really know what we will be doing over the weekend yet. Our papers go to the embassy on Monday. Our interview is on Tuesday. We will get our papers and head home sweet home on Wednesday! Now we are off to find some good old internet access so that we can post this entry!