Thursday, August 19, 2010

Back from the (formerly) USSR...don't know how lucky you are...

We made it back from Russia just fine. Slowly getting the digital photos sorted through; film ones were developed within the first few days back (and slide film, at that!). Definitely more educational as a tourist guided by a local, than as a businessman being shown only the good things.

3 comments:

Matt said...

Wow, what a neat shot! Looking forward to more.
What are your top 3 memories from the trip?

jb said...

1. The juice. I MISS the juice. In USA we have orange and apple juice, maybe pineapple and then expensive others. There, they have cranberry (not apple juice with cranberry added watered down crap), pear, apple, orange, strawberry, cactus, pumpkin (actually good)...and on and on at fairly normal prices.

2. Traffic there is a different beast. Make a lane where you want it, park where you want to. Usually not legal, but everybody does it anyways.

3. Tourist groups. They look silly, walking around the typical tourist spots (Red Square, etc) with ear pieces, guides with big signs ( like leading kids), oodles of cameras and little knowledge of how to use them. I'm glad I had my wife there, I got to be in a few places where I was probably the only American to be there in years. We still stood out. As one boat tour guide said when she saw us, "You don't look tired of living". Sure we looked tired from the heat, walking, and etc... but we were not depressed with being stuck in our life. Pretty sad, really.

I tried writing my thoughts everyday. Definitely helps to remember the experiences.

Matt said...

Russia sounds like an interesting place, but it isn't in my top 10 and the fact that I'm not rich means it probably ain't gonna happen.

Thanks for sharing about the trip.