May 14, 2006

Well, I suppose from the customs sign behind me, you can tell where I am. Started out on May 13 in Las Vegas. Landed in LA at 4:00 pm, and wisked our way to the international terminal where needless to say, we almost didn't make it. But lo and behold, at 6:30 pm and $30.00 in tips later, we were on our way to Moscow. I will NEVER complain about the length of the flight to Vegas from Philly again. Left LA at 6:30 pm Saturday and got to Moscow at 6:30 pm Sunday. Altho it was business class, and I had a fully reclining seat, and it was all you can eat and all you can drink (dang those are about my favorite 8 words in the world), it was still 12 hours on a plane. Was neat flying over the north pole. Looked down from 38000 feet and I can almost swear I saw Santa's workshop from up there. Lots of ice, lots of snow, lots of water. The strangest thing was the fact that even tho we flew for 12 hours, it never got dark outside. All in all, was a very uneventful trip. Many MANY smokers in the airport. A little different than the states. It was funny, you could have a smoke, but you had to stand near the bathrooms, which were about 5 feet from the baggage carousels. Rainy, damp and gray in Moscow. Waited over an hour for our luggage, got thru customs with no problems, but our ride to the hotel never showed up. Got a cab, 5 of us in two cabs. Talk about a language barrier. Fortunately our driver knew some english. Finally made it to the hotel about 9 PM local Moscow time. A long day.