Welcome to Russia

The time has come.  The big move happened, the big blog name change is now official.

I can now be found at A Cushman at the Kremlin.

After a whirlwind summer of travel, Alaskan cruise, family time, more family time, shopping and a few more days spent ill than I would have liked, we are in Moscow, Russia.  Our new home.

We've been here exactly twelve days and there have been some big highs and lows. Our school is awesome, but they throw you into the deep end from day one. Moscow is really beautiful, but it's freaking hot right now and they don't do air conditioner. That's how it goes right.

First of all, let me start with the fact that Moscow is so European.  It doesn't feel or look at all like I thought it would.  The closest comparison I can give to explain how it feels to me is to say that it's a lot like Langon, France where my grandmother is from.  A much bigger city and size than Langon, but the "feeling" is right on in comparison.

We were pleasantly surprised by our three bedroom spacious apartment.

It already looks a lot different than these pictures, I'll post more when our shipment comes in and we finish decorating.  Quincy has his own room and bathroom, and there's even an extra room for future Russian babies (don't worry, we're not planning on snatching them from the street).  So we're feeling very blessed in terms of housing.

In fact, the best part of where we lived was discovered yesterday when some colleagues took us on a long walk through the forest right behind our building.  It leads down to the river and about every 1/4 mile there's a new playground.  Q really enjoyed trying out the slide and swings.  I have so many pictures to take!

But here are the money shots... We went to Red Square last weekend for a new hire photo shoot in front of St. Basil's Cathedral.  It was so easy to get there on the metro and what a beautiful place to go spend the day.  Can't wait for the energy to tackle sight seeing!

The two biggest things on our list when we started looking for a new place to live, were nature and culture opportunities.

I think we're going to be in heaven.  The Bolshoi Theater is a 15 minute train ride from our apartment, so Ryan will be taking me to the ballet regularly, and we've got all the nature we could ask for out our back door.  It's really exciting and I'm feeling very grateful.

There are many more things to say, but our internet isn't that great and it took about 30 min already just to upload all these pictures.  So let me just end with a quick thought.

We're starting to settle into what life is going to be like, and realizing that sadly we're not going to be seeing Q all that much during the week.  The school schedule is pretty rigorous, they have very high expectations of our time. But our nanny has been wonderful so far and we're really happy that they seem to be doing well so far.

He's getting to be such a little person, a little boy. He's talking more and more and using sign language. It's a shock sometimes to look over and see him doing something a little kid would be doing. 

I keep waiting for that moment when I'm going to wake up and this is all a dream.  I spent the whole summer waiting for it to hit that we were moving to a new country and not headed back to Cairo in the fall. It still hasn't happened. Not sure why, but it's weird how long it can take the brain to let go of things.

It's also weird how your experiences change you. I'm loving Moscow, the school, our new apartment and all the wonderful amenities we have. But I'm still filling water bottles and keeping them under the sink just in case our water goes out. We've moved on, the blog name is different, but Cairo just won't let go of us yet.  :)