Brrrrrr......

Lets see... wednesday I spent running errands, packing, finishing things up. I also took my last final exam. Wednesday night Jen and I went to go see Shaun of the Dead, a british zombie spoof. I thought it was very funny, but then it got much more serious and dramatic towards the end. Anyway, got up at 5:30 AM thursday... It's friday night now, so it kind of feels like a sly trick was played on me. Took the Supershuttle to the airport and got my tickets. My trip over here was so miraculously problem free, I'm starting to worry about things at home. I never waited more than ten minutes before my flights started boarding. At sky harbor, I didn't even have time to finish my Chai Latte before the flight. In Cincinnati and JFK in New York, I walked off the plane, walked to the gate, and waited in line to board. The flight to Moscow was a mercifully short 8.5 hours, a mere bagatelle compared to the 14 hour humps from Chicago to Beijing, or Beijing to Paris. My only complaint was that I had the middle seat every flight but the shortest, and every flight was overbooked. I spent the time in transit mostly tearing through the last book in the Gunslinger series by Steven King. He really is getting a bit too cocky, making himself one of the most important (if minor) figures in his novel. Ah well, the gunslinger series is his Magna Opus, supposedly his last published work. We'll see. When we touched down, I got really excited because I realized where I was. There was snow on the ground, bare cedars and black trees, and soviet everything. Moscow is the ancient and current capital, and it's set in the middle of a forrest far to the north. So much for 80 degree warmth and sunshine. Anyway, I deplaned in good time, took only five minutes to get through immigration, my bags were among the first off the conveyer belt, and so I was the first through customs. Mom was there to meet me, dressed up like a muscovite with her black hat and black mink coat. I wrapped myself up in Jen's scarf and entered wonderfully refreshing cold. The drive reminded me a lot of Beijing, the kind of gray crumblingness, the gaudy desperate attempts to cover the decay, the massive public housing complexes. For someone so heavily drilled to work only orthogonally, the apartment staggered me momentarily, since the hall bisected the rooms at a 45 degree angle, causing all the doors to the rooms to be at the corners. The bathroom is a real peice of work; part Trump Towers, part Starship Enterprise, part Atlantis.
Hmmph. Just sat down and suddenly I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. Danged jet lag. I was only able to grab a few hours of sleep on the plane. After I arrived, mom took me shopping. We went to a drugstore, and then to the grocery store, then to the liquor store. It's really quiet now, as Tay and Dad have to fight traffic for hours to get home. Chili for dinner.