Jim Becker
11-18-2005, 6:07 AM
Greetings from Moscow!! Yup...we arrived in the same number of pieces we left with and are enjoying our first full day in sunny...er, not so sunny Russia. It’s a little chilly and windy, but the rain that was falling yesterday when we arrived has left. Light snow is forcast for tomorrow (Saturday). We are expecting very cold, but clear weather when we move on to Tyumen on Sunday to begin the final process of adoption of “A-the-younger” and “A-the-older”.
Traveling to Moscow was a very interesting experience. We had two great flights with Lufthansa; overnight Philadelphia to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Moscow a few hours later. The accomodations on the airline were outstanding, especially the new business class seats on the trans-Atlantic leg, and the food and beverages were top-shelf. The airport in Moscow was a “trip”--we had arranged for “Fast Track” services to speed our arrival routine and wow, it did. We were met at the gate (literally) by a very pretty young lady (in very dangerous looking pointy shoes), let directly to the immigration window past vast lines of people, taken care of there in about a minute and a half, picked up our bags off the conveyor no more than ten minutes later and were then led out to our waiting translator and driver...all in about 15-20 minutes tops.
Our drive into the city, however, was, umm....long. In fact, I think we were in the van for longer than our flight from Frankfurt due to “bad timing” relative to traffic. Even with the shortcut the driver took to avoid a good chunk of the near-standstill traffic just outside the airport, it easily took us two and a half hours to get to the hotel. Moscow just was not built for automobile traffic...we cannot imagine what it would be like with snow on the streets.
The Marriott Grand welcomed us with open arms and our room is spacious and well appointed. In fact, we added “lock the minibar” to our list for next week’s stay with the girls to avoid, umm...trouble. The manager even left a nice bowl of fresh fruit in our sitting area. This morning we met another Pennsylvania couple at breakfast in the lounge who have adopted a beauful little boy from Moscow. They are nearly completed with their 10-day wait (appeal period) and hope to return home next weekend when we do. They were fortunate to get custody of the lad named Alex during this period and the child is doing well with both of them.
After our meal and changing some cash, we set off on foot for Red Square. It’s not an unpleasant walk from the hotel and it gave opportunity to practice reading Cyrillic along the way. Of course, there is a lot of non-cyrillic in Moscow, too...this is an amazingly “commercial” place and any brand name you can think of is here. It’s also a city loaded with banks...very New York like in that respect. At any rate, we walked around Red Square, went through St Basil’s (An incredibly beautiful building on the outside and well along with restoration on the inside), walked through the famous “GUM” department store...which is pretty much a mall at this point...and so forth. I think the strangest thing about Red Square and the Kremlin area is the large number of very big billboards...it's almost like the place is “sponsored” by HP, Aston Martin, tire companies, etc.
This afternoon, we’re going to walk up the street to get a bite to eat and see some more things local to Tverskaya Ulitza (Tverskaya Street). Alison’s sisters and a family friend presented us with a great Marriott “dinner for two” certificate that we are going to use tonight in the Russian eatery here in the hotel. Tomorrow (Saturday) we plan on visiting the Old Arabat area which is famous for it’s shopping and eateries. Other adoptive friends are arriving tomorrow and there are dinner plans in place. We’ll report on all that later!
Traveling to Moscow was a very interesting experience. We had two great flights with Lufthansa; overnight Philadelphia to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Moscow a few hours later. The accomodations on the airline were outstanding, especially the new business class seats on the trans-Atlantic leg, and the food and beverages were top-shelf. The airport in Moscow was a “trip”--we had arranged for “Fast Track” services to speed our arrival routine and wow, it did. We were met at the gate (literally) by a very pretty young lady (in very dangerous looking pointy shoes), let directly to the immigration window past vast lines of people, taken care of there in about a minute and a half, picked up our bags off the conveyor no more than ten minutes later and were then led out to our waiting translator and driver...all in about 15-20 minutes tops.
Our drive into the city, however, was, umm....long. In fact, I think we were in the van for longer than our flight from Frankfurt due to “bad timing” relative to traffic. Even with the shortcut the driver took to avoid a good chunk of the near-standstill traffic just outside the airport, it easily took us two and a half hours to get to the hotel. Moscow just was not built for automobile traffic...we cannot imagine what it would be like with snow on the streets.
The Marriott Grand welcomed us with open arms and our room is spacious and well appointed. In fact, we added “lock the minibar” to our list for next week’s stay with the girls to avoid, umm...trouble. The manager even left a nice bowl of fresh fruit in our sitting area. This morning we met another Pennsylvania couple at breakfast in the lounge who have adopted a beauful little boy from Moscow. They are nearly completed with their 10-day wait (appeal period) and hope to return home next weekend when we do. They were fortunate to get custody of the lad named Alex during this period and the child is doing well with both of them.
After our meal and changing some cash, we set off on foot for Red Square. It’s not an unpleasant walk from the hotel and it gave opportunity to practice reading Cyrillic along the way. Of course, there is a lot of non-cyrillic in Moscow, too...this is an amazingly “commercial” place and any brand name you can think of is here. It’s also a city loaded with banks...very New York like in that respect. At any rate, we walked around Red Square, went through St Basil’s (An incredibly beautiful building on the outside and well along with restoration on the inside), walked through the famous “GUM” department store...which is pretty much a mall at this point...and so forth. I think the strangest thing about Red Square and the Kremlin area is the large number of very big billboards...it's almost like the place is “sponsored” by HP, Aston Martin, tire companies, etc.
This afternoon, we’re going to walk up the street to get a bite to eat and see some more things local to Tverskaya Ulitza (Tverskaya Street). Alison’s sisters and a family friend presented us with a great Marriott “dinner for two” certificate that we are going to use tonight in the Russian eatery here in the hotel. Tomorrow (Saturday) we plan on visiting the Old Arabat area which is famous for it’s shopping and eateries. Other adoptive friends are arriving tomorrow and there are dinner plans in place. We’ll report on all that later!