Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Trips to Moscow and what I'm missing at home

The ticket lady at the train station laughed so hard at me she started crying. I laughed with her too, which I guess means I was also laughing at myself. We were both a little overwhelmed by the massive language barrier, even though I had the foresight to write down the dates and type of ticket I wanted for the ride to and from Moscow. And eventually I did get the tickets, making it back in time to the hotel for the start of dinner.

So I’ll be headed back to Moscow (Mockba in Russian) this weekend for 4 days. Yes, I do mean back. I spent last weekend there with Jaime, Liz and Megan. This time though, I’m headed off alone. Tuesday, Election Day back in the States, is a national holiday here. Not entirely sure which holiday, but regardless I asked to take Monday off and am going to get a longer look at Moscow. We’ll see how traveling and living alone goes. I’m sure I’ll have a few stories to report.

To change gears, a couple things I’m missing from back home:

First of all, the Lakers. The Lakers won the season opener over the Portland Trail Blazers by 20, and my only knowledge of this comes from an ESPN.com recap. Not sure, if I would’ve gotten to see the game at William & Mary, but nevertheless it is one of the first openers that I haven’t watched from the comfort of my couch in quite a few years. Should be a fantastic season, and I’m going to do my best to keep up with it.

Next, of course is the election. As some of you may know, I can at times be quite the political junkie, so it’s hard to be watching such a historic election from such a distance. Although I do my best to keep up to date when I go online and read articles on slate.com and cnn voraciously. But still, I miss the media frenzy that is building up as we approach Election Day, and the media coverage of the issues that really matter to voters- like Joe the Plumber’s household income. I will be voting soon for the very first time. I’ll take some pictures of the big event, before I fax my ballot stateside.

Finally, Halloween. It’s not celebrated here, but we’ve been trying our best to do Halloween themed-crafts at the Hospital for Kids and we’re also headed to a Halloween party for 12-14 year olds at a local English language school tomorrow night. And Friday, Jaime and I are trying to throw a Halloween party at the Hospital for Kids. Halloween night, Friday, will be spent on a train and getting settled in my hostel in Moscow. Not perfect, but anything beats my last Halloween which I spent finishing up college apps.



And to wrap up this post here's a picture of one of the recent chess matches between Jaime and I on my brand new set that I got in St. Petes!

2 comments:

a pinch of salt said...

david,

give my best to jaime. i'm going to see his sister in a couple weeks when she visits zan in new haven. hope you are eating delicious vegetable-less russian food, don't get gout,

emma's brother

Dr. Zeuss said...

lake show still kicking ass. just so you know.

I'm looking forward to your Moscow stories.

-Zack