Getting There

We flew to Chicago, and got there early enough to visit Bill's sister Bev for about 2 hours. So, we had lunch at a Polish buffet, which seemed like a good "transition" towards Russia. It was tasty, fulfilling, and an interesting detour in the midst of our trip.

We boarded our flight in Chicago with great enthusiasm!! You'll note the picture of a "blended winglet". We flew American Airlines aircraft number 389, which is the world's very first 767 with winglets! (Trust me, this is amazing. We saved about 5% on fuel.) Anyway, Theresa's enthusiasm was geared a bit more to the actual point of the trip, not the means. To that point, we were blessed with Business Class, so we had a very nice trip.


The view on arrival was bleak at first, as it was overcast, and we could see nothing until we got below about 10,000 feet. But, once we did, it was a surprisingly beautiful countryside, mostly farmland, thickly blanketed with trees. I did not expect that so close to a city of some 10 million people. As we got closer, the developed areas seemed to cluster as islands in the open land. Open field, immediately juxtaposed to dense development, abutting a thick forest. It looked surreal.
When we finally got to the city, the buildings have an amazing grand plan. In most cities, buildings are unique, independent, haphazard, and random. But, the effect of a government orchestrated construction is that huge tracts of land are developed under a single plan (as evidenced by the photo). One area after another featured patterns of buildings that belonged together, accented each other, and exhibited cohesiveness. I found this striking.

Upon arrival, we waited for two airport personnel to survey our aircraft for H1N1 (a.k.a. Swine flu). They came on with masks and thermometers, and walked through the cabin taking random temperatures. She sneaked up on Theresa and pointed a "gun" at her ear from behind. It was something between funny and creepy!! Passport control and immigration was uneventful (couldn't ask for better!). We had arranged a ride ahead of time (thanks Theresa!), so among the throng of people behind a security tape waited a man with a shiny suit, tie, and sign bearing our name. He did not seem (or let on) to speak "Eengleeshkiya", so it was good that we learned bits and pieces of Russian to communicate minimally. (Hilton Leningradskaya? Dah. Harasho!(Good!) Eta Hilton? (This Hilton?) We were quite fancy!) On the ride away from the airport, we read the signs, practicing our Cyrillic alphabet, and were amazed at how much we could tell just phonetically (there are two sets of letters on each key, but I can't figure out how to get to the cyrillic, which is probably best or I might not get back!). Just wait for the picture of McDonalds!

The ride through the city gave us a flavor for what we might expect. As almost any old city (Moscow being founded in like 860 or so, but of course dramatically expanded during the post WWII decades), there were many buildings that looked tired, worn, and of questionable repair. The city had a bleak feel to it, but the overcast sky probably added to that opinion. But, I have to say, it appears very clean. For all the grey, crumbling, questionable structures, I saw no trash, graffitti, or mess.

That's probably enough for now. We are still working out the bugs on getting pix from our camera to the blog, through the hotel computer, so we'll see how that goes. But these last ones are a view from our room.