Russia!!! [Day 1]

Alena and her family's apartment building!

Random fact: People don't normally rent apartments here, they buy them like houses!

Alena's building!

The mailboxes walking into the apartment.

I was getting a bit nervous as to what I was getting myself into that this point.. :)

My Mom and Rob (her bf) in the stair well of Alena's apartment building. 

Inside the Apartment

To be real, I was worried when I first walked into Alena's building... and then BAM! This =)

**Note** I started at the back of the apartment and worked my way forward towards the front door. Also, the apartment is on the 8th floor.

Alena's Room (said like Alona)

Alena's bedroom! I love the entire layout and look of this room! This is where Brooklyn and I sleep this week also.

A very cool picture of the states out of license plates in Alena's bedroom

Really neat lamp fixtures in the hallway. This is taken from in Alena's bedroom doorway. The bathroom is to the right and the master bedroom is the door straight ahead

Wash Room

Picture of the bathroom area. This is literally a 'bath room' as there is no toilet in here! It's only used to get cleaner.  You can see the shower barely to the right.

One of the coolest showers ever. It's a Jacuzzi bathtub, a regular removable shower head,  and a rain shower head!!!  I love that one =)

Not only that, but there is a radio thing inside and it lights up! You can have a party in the shower! 

Master Bedroom

A terrible picture of Alena's parents bedroom

The Lamp in that room. I like the waves

lamps above their bed

TV mounted in the corner of their wall!

The doctors office right outside Alena's house! [View from the patio in Alena's parents room]

Little stores next to the hospital

Going into Alena's parents bedroom from the patio

Living Room

They have some really cool doors into the rooms in her house.  This door is  into the 'living room' area. 

It's so orange!

John stayed in this room. He quickly got comfortable. Lol. Alena is in the picture above him!

There is a Wii =) And some very cool art pieces.

Kitchen

I love the blue of the kitchen! And I just love the kitchen in general

The table and another patio in the kitchen

View from the kitchen patio. This is a center that kids go to to learn music and dance (I think!) haha

Right next to that is an old military area

New flats (apartments) being built in the distance. Moscow is expanding because they just got a new president.

[If I was to compare Moscow to a place in the U.S., it would be Detroit hands down. There are gorgeous places of historic and modern beauty, and right next to it are run down abandoned buildings (as you can even see from the pictures above!) My later pictures will show more of the diamonds of the city than the rough of the city, but I do try to capture both!] Regardless, the people are amazing just like in the D.]

Bathroom

Door to the toilet!

It's about the size of a closet!

After we arrived!

I was so tired after we arrived at Alena's, I fell asleep for awhile! This evening is sort of a blur, but Alena fed us snack foods and then we just hung around the house for awhile.

Some snack food we ate when we first got in. It was really good! I brought home some of the candy!

This pie was almost like jello on top of cheesecake. Weird but good!

I would tell you everything I ate, but I don't know the words for half of it! You can get most of it from the pictures also.

What I tried for food!

• The strawberry jello pie stuff
• Lots of Russian candy. My favorite was a tootsie roll type candy, that was half peanut butter type flavor, with half chocolate type flavor
• Strange crunchy twists with honey on them! (sort of like those cinnamon twists you get at taco bell, but with honey instead!)
• Fruit

Kittens for Brooklyn =)

Alena's cat Atas. His name means 'crazy' in Russian

A cat on around the 20th floor balcony!

I'm in Georgia now, with less internet than normal, so it might be awhile before I can post again! I'm hoping to not let it affect anything. That's why it's been awhile since my last post also!

Boryspil International Airport

On the Road to Russia!

Chicago U.S.A - Munich Germany - Tbilisi Georgia - Kiev Ukraine - Moscow Russia

about a 1 hour Layover in Kiev!

One part of the Airport

Get through the airport and the new security checkpoints to get the the next airplane. Goooo!

Aerosvit Airlines Boeing 737-400

Loving the blue and yellow =)

It was super cold and windy waiting to get on the plane!

3-3 seating

Ukraine from the Sky 

I tried...

My time on the flight consisted of...

• Watching the second half of We Bought a Zoo on my iPod (I love that movie!)
• Sleep!!!! For about 2 hours

In flight food! Kiev to Moscow

Heck if I know! I don't thing there was one. I don't have a picture of it at least... But lets be real here, I slept for a total of maybe 3.5 hours the entire trip while time travelling forward in time [certified Time Traveller], anything could have happened.

I'm going with there wasn't one =)

Random Detroit Love!

Yes, we are so cool, there are airplanes named after us.

Tbilisi International Airport

On the Road to Russia!

Chicago U.S.A - Munich Germany - Tbilisi Georgia - Kiev Ukraine - Moscow Russia

4 hour and 20 minute Layover in Tbilisi!

We landed in Tbilisi Georgia around 3:30 a.m. their time. This time we had to go through baggage checks and we all wanted to find a place to freshen up a bit. I have to be honest with you, I've never before wanted a private bathroom any more than during my layover in Tbilisi! By the time we settled down in some random chairs, we only had about 3 hours before our next flight departure. 

Weird thing was, Natia, my exchange student we are going to visit after Alena in Russia, was at the airport at the same time as us going to the same country (on a different flight though..) so we got to see her! It was so awesome! I got to see my long lost sister again ^-^ She was leaving for training for one of her 2 full time jobs.

Random Fact: Natia will be working 2 full time jobs this year, and making a total of about $500 a month from both jobs. I can't even imagine that, but everything in Georgia is much cheaper.

Tbilisi Airport. It gets packed around 3 to 4 a.m. as that is when ALL of the flights get in.  Since they are such a small country, the big airplanes will only fly in at night when there is less demand to get to the bigger countries.
In short: Small countries = Red eye flights

I didn't take many pictures or do much else for the rest of the layover as I was catching up with Natia! Too soon it came time for us to check back in again...

Which turned out to be interesting!

while we were in line, we started wondering why certain people were wrapping their bags in duck or packaging tape...

Then we noticed everyone was doing that! There was even an area you could go to  completely plastic wrap your luggage!

Luggage completely wrapped in plastic and tape.

Conclusion: Tbilisi = super theft problems! People would just sit and stare at our luggage while we were there.

Luckily, we had our bags locked with TSA approved locks, and we got everything back in the end (That I know of!)

Transportation to the Airplane

I think this is the first time I've ridden a bus to an airplane as opposed to walking or using the  jetway. It almost got as full as the Bursley-Baits bus does at the University of Michigan

Tbilisi in the distance from the tarmac while boarding the airplane

Our airplane departed around 7:50 a.m. their time!

Aerosvit Airlines Boeing 737

The smallest airplane we took the entire trip. 2-2 seating. Boeing is fantastic though!

Tbilisi from the Sky

I'm excited to visit Tbilisi for real and get pictures. It looks gorgeous from far away!

My time on the flight consisted of...

• Pictures of Tbilisi
• Watching the first half of We Bought a Zoo on my iPod 
• Taking care of Brooklyn as I sat next to her!

Brook fell asleep on my shoulder. What a cutie

In flight food! Tbilisi to Kiev

none!