First time to Russia!

Russia as short as it was,  turned out to be rather awesome. I never left the aiport during my 9 hr stay, so in a way was it really even The Russia?, however I reconnected with my new friend Andy and shared a few more beers and a whole lot of insites mixed with tons of stories.  He'll be developing and shipping a new prototype street bicycle he designed and I have my order in for one comin Philly bound.

The first leg of my flight was relaxing and allowed me to watch a Brad Pitt movie, enter a blog and get a couple of hrs sleep.  I shared a 4 seat row with a 22 YO girl named Villa from Beijing who just finished college in San Diego and is on  her way home (for good) to work in the hospitallity biz.  We ended up clearing customs together and walking through SVO's humungous airport.  I don't understand all the blogs I read prior to leaving. They all seemed to down play the airport as a prehistoric piece of shit. It was actually quite modern and nice. Adequate food and tons of duty free perfumes and booze. Like I cared.   Before heading over for a beer the two of us sat inside the secured terminal in our block of seats behind a big wall of 1/2" plated glass. In some strange metaphysical way i believe this helped contain us in the event that we were tempted to pounce on one of the beautiful creatures disembarking from the umpteen arrivals taking place as  we talked shop. We were comparing the experience (or at least I was) to a B list type of a Cohen Bros film. The scene was a non stop procession of hot Russian supermodels walking down a glass tube runway in a zoo as the wild beasts on the outside considered ways of breaching the clear barrier between them. Looking over our shoulders it was evident we were not the only two with these trippin thoughts as all eyes stayed perched on the glazed pathway. Of course one can only stay in heaven without beer for so long so eventually, with the procession still in play we pulled our pathetic bodies and eyes out of the gutter and headed to the bar.

Beer was 12-15 USD  but delicious nonetheless and there was plenty of time there to experience a bunch of it.  None of the vendors would accept US cash which I thought was strange at first but fortunately they took credit cards. They have also been feeding me pretty well on the 'ol Aeroflot so I've been saving a lot of money. There's nothing cheap about the prices in Moscow's airport though. Having the 9 hrs there I feel quite satisfied with my stay and look forward to getting a Russian visa in Bangkok before I head back as my stay is almost double on my return and I fully plan to get outa the frigging airport, past the Tube & into Moscow. I'm not sure of the requirements of obtaining a visa in Bangkok as an American but I will certainly be trying while there. 

So Now I'm about half way through a 6 hr flight over to Bangkok. When I arrive I'm planning to jump on a train into town and then a sky-train ride into where I believe I'll meet Pete at the hotel.  It'll be 9am by the time I clear customs in the airport and probably close to 11 before i get to town if the Russians are timely. I have a bunch of emails and connecting to do with my Cambodian engineering people and also McD''s Buddy Shep in Indonesia and Burma. I'll reconnect with you all from Bangkok!