Pa Roosky

Zdrastvwechay (booyah phoenetics)! Today is day two for me in Russia, arriving yesterday afternoon. Technically, I guess I've only been in country for 24 hrs. After arriving yesterday at 11a local, a few people met up at 5p to go have Indian food for dinner. At a place called Maharaja, the Chicken Andraki is what I had and it was good. Really expensive, but good. After that, the group of us walked to Red Square for some photo ops (none from me, actually), saw St. Basil's Cathedral (I will try to go inside someday soon), the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and some old ladies dancing in the street to their boombox with 80's style hairpieces. It was pretty funny :)

I crashed out last night, woke up every hour to check the time and wonder exactly what "2:07 am" meant, then finally awoke at 6:00am to get ready for the day. Chris ("Buckles" as I call him) is over here for work on a 3 month tour, so we went a-travelin' this morning before work. First we went to Sparrow Hill which is southwest of the city center, right across from the University of Moscow - a huge, beautiful building. We hiked up this hill which is also home to a ski jump across from an olympic stadium (i think). She ain't too steep, but MAN am i winded from the climb up the hill! There was a fog over the city this morning and it's still overcast and sometimes sprinkle-y outside, but the weather is cool and lovely. Ahhhhhhhhhh. None-the-less I was pitting out all over the place in my rain jacket. Now my feet and my person stinks. Pleasant!

After Sparrow Hill we took the metro back toward the city center and stopped at Sculpture Park which is across from Gorky Park. I didn't know Gorky Park was an amusement park - I had associated it with the Sculpture Park right across from it...huh. I liked Sculpture Park a lot - walking amongst old sculptures from around Moscow and seeing some interesting spectacles. PLUS, there is the Peter the Great statue in the Moscow River (I think that's what it is) adjacent to the park and it's HUGE! Neat as well, so we got to see that also.

Next up for me today is work from 12-5, then dinner. Hope to get some of the "famous" pizza from near the TsUP ("soup", not " 'sup?") which is the mission control center in Moscow, today for a late lunch. Mmmmmm. I think I'm going to be lacking protein this trip, so I'm going to try everything I can to eat it in some form when I can - even if that means pizza! I have some basics from the grocery store near the hotel, so I'm sure I'll be eating just fine this trip :)

For now, I'm going to get ready for my first day at work and will write more later!

ps: I only brought my point-and-shoot camera, so I'll try to post some pix when I have some free time later. So far, not too many pix - we'll see how I do this trip!

**UPDATE: PIX!***