Thursday, February 8, 2006

Today is the earliest I have been up the entire time here. We have to be in the lobby by 5am to go to the airport to fly back to Moscow. The alarm is set to go off at 3:30 but I am up at 3am. I can't sleep anymore. Steve is out like a light and snoring like crazy. I just get up, take a shower and pack up the few things we have. If you remember, our 4 bags of luggage were lost. Andrei finally got ahold of someone yesterday with the airline. He said they had 2 bags and were going to send them down to Orenburg. He had them pull them off that and deliver them to the Hotel where we are staying at in Moscow. For crying out loud....you gotta love airlines.

Everyone is on time in the lobby and we quickly leave for the Orenburg airport. Our flight leaves at 7am. Orenburg is 2 hours ahead of Moscow so we will actually gain some time back today. While at the airport, we meet 2 families that are returning with their children. One couple I talked to before we came so it was nice to put a face to a voice on the phone. Their daughter is just a cutie. She told me to call her when we got home and that's just what i plan to do. They show us the little passports that they have. How adorable!!!

We were able to grab some coffee while we were waiting for the plane. It was nice to be able to get some caffeine in me. We were all able to sort of say goodbye and hopefully make our plans to all come back together. we traveled with a really great group of people. We all had similar personalities and we just really had fun together even though we were sleep deprived and running on empty. We were able to make each other laugh in situations that were at times stressful. Thanks Johnny for the "shit! I wore the wrong shirt" comment while we were at the MoE. What a stress reliever!

The time has come for us to load the plane. Me of course have my camera out to take pictures. I roll one off and out of the blue this man is sturnly telling me something. I am nervous that he is going to take my camera away from me. Ilya appears and tells me to put it away. Christina turns around and tells me that she thought I saw her get in trouble. Nope!! Oh well. Perhaps the KGB is still alive. We get loaded on the plane and the ride is pretty uneventful. It's only a 2 hour ride. Both kids did really well on the flight. We sat right behind them. I only hope that same plane ride goes as well for us! One can only hope.

We arrive at the Moscow airport at the same time that we left Orenburg. We grab my 1 bag and head out. We all have drivers taking us somewhere. Ann and Dave are staying at a hotel near SVO, Dave and Christina are making the long haul home to see their 4 yr old and Steve and I are off to the Marriott Tverskaya to stay for a few days. We walk outside and it is really cold. I had just made the comment to someone saying that I thought it was going to be a lot colder than it really was. The temp has really dropped in Moscow. We are standing outside waiting for all of the drivers and it is cold. It makes your lungs hurt a little. I later heard that it is -24 degrees C. Finally, they put us in a car and we are on our way. I thought we would make it to the hotel pretty quickly but boy was I wrong. There was MAJOR traffic and it took us a little under 3 hours. People here are crazy drivers. I asked the translator in the car, "are those people driving on the sidewalk?" Her reply was yes. I asked if they could get in trouble and she said they take the chance. NIce! And we thought LA traffic was bad. It was worse than a sig alert on the 91 freeway!

Anyhow, we finally make it to the hotel and check in. They were going to have a wait until 12 and it was only 10:30am. We go up to the cafe and grab a latte. I loving that they have these. Steve goes to check on the internet service and comes back to tell me that they have given us a room. Thank god! We also get news about our luggage. They have it and they tell us that there are 4 pieces. However, he says it's all green. This isn't good. We only had 2 green and the other 2 are black. We go to the room and the guy says he will bring it up. He knocks on the door and there it is....ALL OF OUR LUGGAGE!!! I was so excited. I practically wanted to peel my stinky dirty clothes off right there and begin to change. We get it in the room and we can't open it up fast enough. WOW! It's really the little things in life like a clean pair of socks and clean underware that hasnt been washed out in the sink!

We decide to take the rest of the day and get caught up on some serious sleep. I took a 2 hour nap and when Steve tried to wake me, I couldnt open my eyes. I felt like I had been drugged. I manage to wake up and begin updating the blog. After awhile, we go to the restaurant to eat some dinner. It's not cheap but we don't have to walk outside in the cold. We figure we'll go to bed early and be ready to take on some sites tomorrow. We want to hit the popular spots like the Kremlin, Red Square, Arabat, etc.

Stayed tuned for more....I'm off to bed. This jet lag is really setting in. I really thought I was over it while we were in Orenburg. Boy was I wrong. Good luck coming home ane being productive at work.