день два в москов

It's surprising how much harder it is to achieve even the basics in another country when you can't even read a word letter by letter.

Yesterday was a challenge - I'd arranged a meeting with a Canadian astronaut (and as it turned out a few NASA reps, including the first shuttle test pilot Bob Crippen), but without an address or a Russian name, we got lost. After a series of text messages (to be appended here) with increasing hilarity, Chris Hadfield walked out to meet us at an identifiable square. By that point, we only had a few minutes to meet him, but we had an excellent lunch (and purportedly the best chocolate-banana milkshake in Moscow!) at the Starlight Grill diner. A very American start to our trip.

Today, we bussed out to Energia, where we heard the history of the Space Race from the company historian, with some first-hand accounts from our very own Nikolai Tolyarenko, formerly of Energia and now our MSS Director. Pictures to follow tomorrow.

More tales of adventure today - walked 12 hours - ended up at the end of the line on a turn-around unexpectedly, spent hours in a grocery store learning Russian a word at a time.

Had a blast with my SSP05 classmate, Liliana. More to come, I promise.

Gotta run - internet cafe about to run ou...