And

I am taking advantage of free wireless as long as possible.

Went downtown after dinner, with Denis and the other Midd kids- we bought metro tickets, which was our first interaction with a Russian-speaker that was practically necessary and not in a school, at least for me. I was pretty pleased. We went to Red Square, saw various amazing things, were amazed that we were walking around in Moscow. I think Denis was sort of freaked out that we were there, actually- it must have been a lot weirder for him to see us there than it was for me when I walked a long way through the Frankfurt airport and was just observing all the crazy Europeans and then all of a sudden Natasha was running toward me. And that was pretty wierd. Also, I must record here that Natasha had, as a carry-on, a stuffed Sponge-Bob Squarepants, and that this thing was wearing her coat. As Mr. Squarepants, is, well, square, no head protruded- it was just a coat with yellow legs sticking out, sitting in its own chair. We all (Abby and Ivan and I) made fun of her until we looked across the terminal and saw a much larger yellow head sticking up out of its own chair next to a German girl.

Moscow is so awesome. For one thing, everything is really, really well lit, so even at night nothing is dark- the ground is well lit, and then the buildings have really cool lights, so you see where you're going, the sky is dark, and these amazing buildings are just rising up in dramatically-lit awesomeness. Bad for the environment and light pollution and the city budget, but really nice for walking around. It made taking pictures sort of frustrating though, as the clear, amazing views didn't show up well at all. I think the building I was most surprised at was GUM, the Soviet-era department store collossus. I always thought of it as a modern shopping mall, but it's actually a beautiful old building, bigger than I could have imagined, christmas-style lights lining all it's cool arches and trim and corners, with mosaic icons over the big entrances. It was as very odd sight, giant Rolex ads next to a beauiful image of the Annunciation. This is an odd country.

And the metro was much more pleasant and prettier than I'd imagined- the stations are so open and impressive and cool-ly decorated, and then the old painted trains are rather pretty too.

I can't believe I will be spending the next night on an airplane. I will never sleep again.