Cold as, bru!

Sorry about the delay between postings. I got this one partially done in Moscow, then we went to Turkey, where blogspot.com is apparantly blocked for the entire nation. So that slowed down the momentum. Went on to Israel with the family and then there were four of us all fighting to use the computer everywhere we went, and that slowed the momentum even further. Anyway, it's time to start catching you all up:

It was pretty chilly in Moscow. I think the biggest thing we had to get used to (more than the alphabet/language issues) was that no one smiled. There were a couple people in Western-oriented service industries that could put on a forced smile if you smiled at them long enough, but in general no one ever smiles. No laughing and nodding along whenever someone spoke to us. Well, we'd laugh and smile and they'd repeat whatever they just said in Russian louder and with a concerned frown.

Except one night, there was a guy being escorted from a bar by the bouncer and his girlfriend. I saw him smile, but that was probably unintentional.

The night before we left Bangkok, we double-checked our flight times. We thought we were leaving at 5pm, but it turns out our plane left at 10am. Perin had just washed some clothes so she had to travel with wet clothes, which she wasn't pleased about. Additionally, we didn't get our winter coats we had custom made, in time (they'll be shipped to the States). And finally, the hotel wasted our time in the morning and we missed the train station check-in with the express train to airport. We had to take the slow train to the airport and stand in the regular check-in line at the airport. It all worked out though and we made it to Moscow with just enough clothing to keep us warm. Not nearly as fashionable as we would have liked, but warm enough.

As the plane landed, everyone on the plane put up a huge round of applause and cheering. We learned later, that Russians do this every time a plane lands successfully. It's kind of nice at the time, and kind of creepy upon further contemplation.

We did the major tourist attractions in Moscow. Some highlights include the Museum of Contemporary History (or Museum of the Revolution) which is total Soviet-era propaganda about how awesome the USSR was and its magnificent achievements. Example: "despite some flawed policy decisions by Stalin, the USSR became the world's largest manufacturer in under five years," and "despite 27 million people dying in the Great Patriotic War, the USSR was the world's largest wheat producer by 1948."

And then after all the Soviet stuff, they had a room filled with perestroika memorabilia and a podium that Yeltsin made a speech from. That led to an even sadder room filled with photographs of Russian athletes since 2000 and a Lukoil floating oil platform diorama framed by some generic Lukoil corporate posters. I understand that Lukoil probably financed the refurbishment of the museum, but any US company that did something similar would leverage the PR opportunity and really fluff themselves up.

I don't really like ballet and can say that the Bolshoi ballet was really good and a good time. The Red Square, the Kremlin, and St. Basil's Cathedral all lit up at night with a fresh layer of snow falling was really romantic. We saw many of the cathedrals they've fixed up since the USSR fell, and they've done a great job. Some of the underground Metro stations were really beautiful. I really enjoyed Moscow and would like to go back again soon.

And speaking of the Metro stations, everyone was reading Metro 2033. So many, that I can't wait to get back and read the English version upon its release.

On to Mother Motherland

Thailand has been an amazing shopping experience for Perin and I. We got some clothes made, bought some t-shirts from street vendors, and I stocked up on fire-breathing monkey lighters whose red eyes light up and flash. While monkey lighters were quite popular on my last visit here, three years later they were very difficult to find and negotiate.

All of our consumption will be shipped back to the States so we don't have to lug it around the world with us. With one exception: warrior-grade winter coats for Russia we had made. Last week's high was -18 degrees(C).

It's difficult to conceptualize that temperature when it's over 90 degrees(F) here with 70% humidity. Cambodia was even hotter and was also a positive shopping experience. After a day of flying and touring temples, I had to drag Perin around shopping during our one night there. For the stars to align and for Perin to have a weaker shopping endurance than I probably won't happen until well after Halley's Comet comes and goes again.

Enough superficiality. Seeing the temples (wats) in Bangkok was pretty cool, but Angkor Wat was magnificent. We arranged a tour guide and tuk tuk driver ahead of time and that had positive and negative aspects. The guide was very informative and shared all kinds of information with us we wouldn't have got from a guide book, but he'd also seen the ruins thousands of times and seemed to be pushing us along instead of letting us explore the grounds of every temple we stopped at.

Back to superficiality. I almost got a Lil Wayne shirt that's even better than the shirt Perin got with a giant octopus eating a man. Alas, I was too powerful.