I hope to give you all a glimpse of life for us in Moscow. Here are some photos and stories about our day to day life here, as well as our attempts to take in the
sights in and around the city.
We arrived after a 9 hour direct flight from New York. Not too bad... Scarlett was just too excited. She slept 2 out of the 9 hours. She did alot of walking up and down the aisles, and visiting with our neighbors. Looking back on it, I can't seem to remember how we passed the time. But we survived somehow. Arriving at the airport gave us a little taste of the different culture we were about to experience. As soon as you exited the jet way into the airport, it reeked of smoke! Smokers everywhere... not only passengers but the plane crew and what looked to be employees. All smoking right in the airport. We navigated our way to the customs line, where we stood in a very long line for a few minutes before the person in front of us said in Russian, "if you are a diplomat, you need to go to the front of the line before we can go through." After Jim had her repeat it a few times, he figured out what she was saying... Okay, sounds good to us! We zipped right through customs. Out to the luggage area, where we located all of our 6 bulky bags quickly and found our sponsor. Into the van and off we went into the crazy Russian traffic!
Here are a few snapshots of our new home and community. We live with mostly other expats; Brits, Australians and Canadians. There are lots of Americans working in private industry, 
embassy and military. We also have some Russian neighbors. The Anglo American School is attached the compound. The school is a great facility, K-12 with a nice gym, pool and elementary library that we have access to. Next door we have large "Lesapark", basically a large wooded area with a pond and lots of trails. There is a water spring in the park that the Russians are convinced has medicinal/healing properties. We always see people of all ages lugging water in large jugs home from the park.
