Blogging in Russia

I got to Moscow late yesterday afternoon after an uneventful flight. I was supposed to go from Dallas to New York to London to Moscow. But I got to the airport and they informed me that I was not going to New York, at all, but to Chicago. No big deal, I said, but it would have been nice if they'd told me before I got to the airport (turns out they had, but we hadn't checked the machine at home after we got up in the morning, after their late night call).

Heathrow airport, I have to say, has the world's most horrendously long, burdensome, maddening imigration lines for people who simply want to change planes and fly off to another country. It took me 2 hours in line to finally get on board my flight. Others had the same problem, of course, so they delayed my flight to Moscow for an hour.

I was greeted in Moscow at the arrival hall by a guy carrying a sign with my name and my hotel name on it. He was one of probably 100 others who were waiting to greet guests. My guy spoke not a word of English. I speak not a word of Russian. My gasps and white knuckles gripping the dash board probably conveyed to him, though, that I was frightened by his driving. He drove a Ford Focus at 160 km/hour down highways littered with broken-down cars along both sides and with traffic congestion like none I've seen anywhere. We were either going at breakneck speed or were at a dead stop...just before pulling in front of someone on the right or left, scooting along the shoulder (both sides). It took us 1-3/4 hours to get from Domodedovo airport to the Golden Ring hotel. I have no idea the distance, but suspect it would have taken 20 minutes on clear roads.

I've only been here for about 18 hours now and have not been outside the hotel since arriving, so have no real-world experiences to report. But when I opened Blogger to begin to record this message, I was intrigued by what it looked like: