Before I continue with the latest update, allow me to answer the inevitable question of, “Where are the photos?”

They are coming. I have to find the time to resize them all and I’ll make a post about where to find them in my Gallery.

Upon leaving Orlando, it was a 9 hour flight across the Atlantic to Germany. This trip sucked. Apparently, being the largest person on the plane, this meant I had the only person on the entire plane who needed their seat fully reclined, seated in front of me. This made sleeping difficult so I watched 9 hours of movies straight including Rush Hour 3 (terrible), Ratatoullie (ok), Project Gold – A documentary of Germany’s 2007 World Championship Handball Team (very interesting), and Stardust (a Princess Bride rip-off).

After a brief layover in Frankfurt, it was off to Moscow and Mother Russia. We arrived in Moscow in the late afternoon and saw snow flurries for the first time. Due to a crap ass schedule, we had an eight hour layover in Moscow Airport Terminal 1. This may have been the most miserable experience of my natural life. There was no place to sit, the terminal was dirty and cramped, and we were tired. The one amusing part of this leg of our journey was “The Cat”.

While reading the final Harry Potter book at the small cafe in the terminal, I saw something furry. Upon closer examination it was a cat…that I thought was dead. I then noticed it was breathing…although no one else seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary about a cat chilling out in the airport. The cat apparently ran the joint as every hour or two it would move and lay down in a random spot, with no one really cariing. Even when the cat chose to lay in the middle of the busiest walkway in the airport.

After eight hours we boarded the flight that would complete our journey to Novosibirsk, the leg that scared me the most. Surprisingly, this ended up being the most enjoyable part of our flight. We landed at Novosibirsk Airport at 9:30AM local time and were greeted by the team.

Next up…Greetings Comrade!