Moscow arrival

A grueling 27 hours after leaving our home we finally arrived at our hotel in Moscow. I am a little surprised that I don't have more jet lag. Must be running on some serious adrenaline. Ha!

We had a driver waiting for us at the airport to give us a ride to our hotel. Thankfully he is a people person and we enjoyed great conversation. Unfortunately our commute was very slow due to heavy traffic, car wrecks, and it being Friday early evening. We are from San Antonio and he is a fan of the Spurs. We talked about the players and the team quite a bit. Funny thing about our conversation is that it veered into American politics too, being that the presidential election is coming up in 11 days. Our driver is better informed about the election that most (uninformed) Americans.

Arrived at the Vega hotel around 8pm local time. Both Alicia and I were hungry after the long trip and eating mostly plane food. We decided to take the recommendation, of an Italian restaurant, from the Russian HSCT forum. The restaurant is located just one short block from the hotel so we walked over there in a cold blustery evening. We both felt very comfortable at the restaurant. We chuckled at the fact that we could not speak Russian but had no trouble communicating to the Chinese waiter by using google translate on my phone. We ordered a pizza on the advice from the forum. The recommendation was spot on. Never had a veal pizza before and we both enjoyed it immensely.

The temp was 30 degrees, not too bad for Moscow, but the wind was really whipping hard. The wind chill factor made it feel downright frigid. Certainly not the San Antonio weather that we had been enjoying just one day ago. There was a dusting of snow overnight and the wind has settled down now.

Today we are planning on doing some sight seeing. I check into the hospital in three days for the initial testing to see if my body can handle the treatment. During this lull we will do some shopping for some souvenirs and take in some sights. We hope to see Red Square today and hit some markets in that area. Will have to see how the energy level is today after the long trip. Jet lag is likely going to limit how much we do today.