Zdrast'vtya!

Hello to everyone in the States!

So it has been 3 days here in Moscow and there are so many things worth talking about I can't even decide where to begin.

I will start with the city itself, since Moscow is really a lot more beautiful than any pictures I've seen. Most people only know the Kremlin, but there are so many buildings that are just as pretty . There's a giant mall in Red Square (and I mean GIANT, it's gotta be a few city blocks long and wide, with three stories) that looks like a castle. In fact, a ton of buildings here look like they could be castles or palaces. There are a lot of signs that have flashing bulbs, so when you walk down a street everything is flashing at you and trying to draw your attention. Tverskaya, which is the road we live on, is basically 5th Avenue/Michigan Ave. (depending on which city you are familiar with) and clothing and shoe stores are EVERYWHERE.

For those of you who are reading this and will be making the trip later, start learning Russian now. Most people don't speak English, and even if they do they don't speak it well enough to really understand what it is you need. It's actually been very frustrating and scary, because there's no way to even moderately communicate with people since the languages are so different. Our professor, who speaks fluent Russia took us out to eat, and if he hadn't have been there I would have been completely lost. So many simple things I am simply unable to do because of the language barrier, it's pretty frustrating. We had to find another place to get Wi-Fi because the cafe place had cards with directions we couldn't read.

The Moscow Art Theatre itself is much bigger than I had expected, as is everything I've encountered in Russia. When I was England, everything was very small, but Russia seems to have a sense of size that is a little closer to America. (Even the cars seem bigger) I don't have any pictures of it yet, but there are two different buildings and several theatres. The "American Studio" is on the 5th floor of the building, and there are also classrooms on the 2nd and 4th floors. It's a very pretty complex, and I will post pictures as I get them. We had our first classes today, so I will talk about those more as well as they develop. I can say that having class through a translator is not the most effective method of study, as the translator would make equally as confusing English sentences.

We took a trip to the Novodevichy Cemetary, where the Russian elites are buried, to see Stanislasky/Nemirovich-Damchenko/Anton Chekov's graves. It was almost more like a museum than a graveyard, as the tombstones were all unique; they either had sculptures of who's grave was there, or statues or busts or lavish crosses. The walls were also lined with pictures and busts, it was breathtaking. As interesting was the subway ride there, as the Metro is like 40 feet underground, as they were all built to be bomb shelters in Soviet times. I will take the Metro as little as possible however, because you have to rush and squeeze into overcrowded subway cars, and when the doors close they CLOSE. I could easily see someone breaking an arm trying to hold a door for someone, it's that fast.

I'm going to try to wrap it up here, since my battery is running low and I already fried my converter so I have no way to charge it yet. So in closing, Red Square is breathtaking, (pictures of that coming as well) St. Basil's Cathedral (the building you all think of when I say the Kremlin) is 100x more beautiful in person than you can imagine, the women are beautiful, the beer is strong and can be drank at any time in any place, (I had a beer at 10AM walking down the street!) and the only thing that's cheaper here than in America are cigarettes ($1 a pack). More as things develop/as I get easier access to the internet.

Dasvdana,

-Eric