Home afgain

It’s 4 AM and I can’t sleep. Guess it’s going to take some time to adjust to the 8 hour time difference.

I’ll try to remember the highlight of the past few days.

They found a place to get air in the tire and we thankfully didn’t have any further problems. They did get to do the food shopping, and then we all piled into the car and went to Molly Gwynn’s – Moscow’s version of a British pub - very cozy – standard pub food. We had a tasty assortment of appetizers. The girls devoured the chicken fingers – cut in strips resembling French fries. For our farewell dinner at home we had – pelimi ( Russian ravioli) and chicken shashlik. Don’t think I’ll easily find them here so I’m going to search for recipes.

We were all up early Sunday for us to get to the airport. It was hard not to cry while waving goodbye to those little faces in the window. I’m going to miss them.

There were some extra lines at this airport. Luckily Mike stayed as long as he could to help with the Russian. First line was to check your passport then another where they go thru your bags – they opened looked through everything! Had a problem with one thing that needed to be shown to a supervisor – don’t want to spoil a surprise but luckily it was still sealed and allowed. After struggling to get the bags closed again it was on to another line to check in and check our bags. We decided to have something to eat but we had to leave the secured area. Found a TGI Fridays! We don’t go there enough to know if the menu was similar – we had omelets. Then we had to go back thru the secured area – more people were on line now so it took awhile. Finally got to the official passport screening – Mike couldn’t go thru so we had to say goodbye. It was a long walk then to the gate. Many Duty Free shops but they only took euros – so I didn’t get anything. Did look at the booze – the only vodka I saw was Stolly – probably at inflated prices. You had the usual security check at the gate – take off shoes, metal detector and they hand searched the carry ons. We only had to wait about a half hour before they started boarding – our last line in Russia.

The plane ride was smooth – and we came in early! Finished my second book of the trip and almost knitted a complete Quant headband. I was too groggy at the confusing end part of the pattern and decided to put it away. More lines to get out of the airport, of course. Ron was annoyed that I put down we had plant materials on the customs form. I had picked a bag of pinecones from the tree outside their door. After digging them out, the inspector just said, “Going to make Christmas decorations?” then just handed them back to me – nice to know some people in uniform understand an urge to craft! Found the limo driver and was glad to get in the house. Dumped the bags, made church and went to bed right after having wonton soup for dinner

The house seems fine – looks like the plants survived. Just took a shower – don’t need Ron’s assistance any more. The rim of the tub in Russia was higher than my knees and the bottom was almost 10” from the floor – so you’re really stepping down getting out. I didn’t trust my balance especially since a third of the tub was slanted. I really missed this little independence but haven’t decided on the cold floor. I missed the sensation of stepping on cold tiles while I was in Russia but it’s going to take a few days to make a decision.

Going to take things slow today. Just thinking about the unpacking, laundry, picking up the mail, and uploading the camera makes me want to take a nap.