First Day in Moscow

That was a looong flight.  We got here ahead of schedule -- there is snow on the ground and it was snowing when we landed.  The airport is beautiful and modern.  The immigration control officer didn't say one word to me or cracked a smile, or even looked at me for that matter while scanning my passport, scanning my visa, etc.  Very Eastern Europe.  The baggage claim area was also competely quiet -- no loud conversations, no yelling, laughing -- just quietly standing around ... again, very Eastern Europe. 
The driver from the adoption agency, Murat, was waiting for us -- seemed really nice, young guy, grabbed our suitcases, and off we went.  When I stepped outside the terminal  -- all seemed really quiet for a second, with big fluffy white snowflakes softly falling to the ground ...it was beautiful.
The drive to the city was uneventful.  The outskirts of Moscow could have been the outskirts of any other Eastern European city -- Ikea, Auchen supermarkets, and McDonalds (written in the Cyrillic alphabet of course) -- everywhere.  Murat did not say much to us, and soon I started to feel like a character in some elaborate World War II movie -- Murat handed me his phone all of a sudden (by the way, he has the iPhone4) -- and some woman in perfect and very polite English instructed me to give "certain documents to Murat" -- turns out she would be our translator (?).  Then, the car stopped, and another young very polite Russian lady appeared -- clearly on cue -- and asked for some  documents I brought from my adoption agency on behalf of other families.  I felt like I was a pawn in an elaborate and very smoothly coreorraphed chess game .  Clearly, these guys know what they are doing, and have a plan -- it does not involve keeping me in the loop.  -- All the people I came into contact with from my agency in Moscow have been helpful, exceedingly polite, and spoke excellent English  (which is really nice -- more on that later :) So Murat drove us around downtown Moscow for  a little bit, and we laid eyes on Red Square, the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral -- unbelievably beautiful and impressive.  He also took us to lunch, helped us get $$ out of an ATM, and get some basics at the local grocery store.  I really started to fade by then, so all his help was greatly appreciated.  He also took us to our apartment, which was nice, b/c it wasn't the easiest place to find -- and then, took off..... 
Our apartment is a small one bedroom apartment -- very Eastern European in look and feel.  It is literally a 3 minute walk from Red Square, on a pedestrian only street.  could not have wished for a more perfect location.  After just trying to get our bearings straight, we walked down to Red Square -- I could NOT believe that I was standing there -- looking at the Kremlin, Lenin's Tomb, St. Basil's cathedral (which, by the way looks even more like fantastical and magical in real life).  It is coooold here -- and the wind is biting.  So we quickly took refuge at GUM -- which is the fanciest indoor shopping mall I've ever seen -- it was built in the late 1800s and is an incredibly ornate building -- decorated beautifully with all the most expensive and luxury stores in there -- we wondered around for a couple of hours... unbelievable. 
It is clear that we stick out like sore thumbs -- we do not blend in, fit in or even remotely resemble locals -- the general feel of the place is very similar to that of the rest of Eastern Europe -- except the signs are all in Russian (duh!).  So we had a lovely dinner of chicken soup in the bread bowl at a place that looked like the Russian version of some place like Panera, and I decided to get up to the counter and get some pastries for tomorow breakfast.  So in my best Russian, I asked for 2 croissants.  The friendly young guy at the counter didn't skip a beat and answered in English.  I am guessing that my Russian needs some serious work.
Olga, our "coordinator" also called me -- at this apartment's landline.  Again, impeccable manners and impeccable English, we set up a meeting for tomorrow, so we can go over the schedule, and she can prepare me for my meeting tomorrow at the Ministry of Education .  Thus far, very impressed with the way things are running here.
Must get some sleep -- hope to see more of the city tomorrow, and get some great news about my paperwork being approved etc.etc.