First Post!

"If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new."
-Johan Friedrick von Schiller


Howdy friends and family! I wanted to start this blog for many reasons. One, because I know I would be itching for details and pictures of EVERYTHING if my friend had just moved to Moscow, so I wanted to provide you with just that. Two, I'm hoping you'll comment on my blog posts so I can hear from you all. Three, Chelsea LeSueur knows what she's talking about. Four, I want to be able to look back at my year-long adventure in Moscow and remember how I felt as it was happening. I'll be posting pictures here and telling you all about the fun things I discover in hopes that I can persuade some of you to hop on an airplane to come see it for yourself. I'm learning as I go, and I can't wait to show you everything!

I got here last Saturday and pretty much went straight to IKEA. Bad idea. In the States, IKEA is great. Its fun to just walk through and see the rooms and imagine living there. Russian IKEA is a different story. First off, it starts with a backwards N. WHAAAAT?!?! That's the cyrilic "I" making it pronounced ee-KAY-uh. So picture this: You just got off a 10 hour flight. You're so jet-lagged that you could fall asleep standing up. You're walking through IKEA, bumping into crowds and crowds of people babbling in a constant stream of gibberish, trying to decide what would match the walls and the floor and the other pieces, and not even having the presence of mind to say "excuse me" in Russian. IKEA is great, it's got everything you need for excellent prices, but I've been there three times in the past week, and we have plans to go again tomorrow. Yippee.

The next place we went that day was Ashan. That's the "Awah" in the picture above. There is a mall that connects IKEA and Ashan. Crowding here was worse than IKEA. In Russia, they don't really say anything if you're in their way. They just ram their shopping cart into you and wait for you to shuffle out of the way. By the time we made it to Ashan, I think we WERE asleep. Let's just say it wasn't the most thorough of shopping trips.  When we went to church the next day, more than one person told us that they have sworn off grocery shopping (especially at Ashan) on Saturdays.

There's so much more to say; believe it or not, there is life after jet-lag and it is a beautiful thing. I miss each and every one of you very, very much. If I haven't lured you in yet, I dont know how I ever could. ;) Until next time! до свидания!