Moscow safe and sound....

We left Pskov at 6:00pm on Thursday and rode ALL night in the train to Moscow. It was quite an interesting experience as you can imagine. We had a private car on the train, 4 bunks and a tiny table. As expected it was sufficatingly hot and stuffy, Charlie was the only one that got any sleep at all.
It is ALOT colder outside here, if our math is correct it is -10F.

Our Moscow host, Alex, is really great. He actually explains what all the buildings are and tells us what we're doing and when we're doing it. What a nice change! He had allready checked us into the hotel when we got in at 6:20am. Then we had an hour to relax in the room, freshen up. He sat in the lobby and did all of our paperwork for the embassy. We had a brief meeting, where he just said "sign here, here and here" Done. What a blessing!

My First Bath at Ludmilla's house.

Then he took us to Charlie's doctor's appointment. It was uneventful. The doc was pleasant. Not sure what Russian doctors are looking for when they bang around your body with their hands up and down your body. But anyway- he counted all fingers, toes, and (Ah, hem, private areas) and said Charlie is in tip top shape and is a very handsome boy. Then we were off to the embassy to drop off papers for our appointment at 11:00am on Monday. We just waited in the car.

Then off to the grocery store (which is always at the Mall.....) and is giant. It looked alot like the one in Pskov, maybe the same chain? So we actually navigated pretty well. We picked up stuff for breakfast and a few lunches, as to try to conserve the cash flow! So we are all set.....
Our hotel is AWESOME! We are staying at the Marriott Renaissance in Moscow, thanks to a great connection from "Babushka Womer". We have already taken a LOVELY nap in the excellent bed and a fantastic "non-brown" water shower. We are getting ready for dinner now, it's so expensive here!!! But we are loving hotel. We walked down to the pool and let Charlie hang out a little, so that maybe tomorrow or Sunday he'll be ready to take the plunge. He has LOVED three baths and He climbed in the shower with me today, so I think it's safe to say he really loves the water.
Today was also a day of ALOT of firsts-
First NO CRY AT ALL DAY!!! (Coming or going in the machina!)
First MCDONALDS HAPPY MEAL!!! Loved the chicken nuggets and even rocked some Sweet and Sour Sauce!
First ELEVATOR AND ESCALATOR RIDE
First TRIP TO THE MALL
First RIDE IN THE CART AT THE GROCERY STORE
And took it all like a champ- happy, smiling, just wonderful!
Anyway- it's time for dinner....tomorrow is a big day of siteseeing with Alex. So we are off... I promise to get some pictures up, once mommy has some "alone time". Everytime he sees himself on the camera, computer, etc. He wants to crawl up the computer and give me a narritive of exactly what's going on in the picture.
Paka Paka Y'all!