Week #2

This week has flown by, we havent had much time for anything keeping our fencing crews busy is simple but under the situation is a difficult task. The language barrier proves to be a chore for everyone everyday. but any way lets recap on whats acctually happened since we left two weeks ago. The 2nd of may we left boise for a two hour flight to denver. Brent acctually got sick on that flight and was puking in the lavatory the whole flight. landed in denver and it was straight to the bathroom for him! haha... (we decided that for a parting meal we would eat Mcdonalds at the boise airport. It proved to be devistating for him). After a 3 hour lay-over at denver we loaded up on a 747 for a trip over iceland scottland london and into frankfurt germany making a 11 and a half hour plane ride. with brent puking every so often it made for an interesting plane ride. they had 2 inflight meals wich actually werent that bad. and the stuardests were all beautiful and friendly haha germans. We landed around 11am and made our way through the frankfurt airport. It was a little more difficult than denvers airport but it wasnt bad. We went through another screening that i guess was there customs, then sat for another two hours. we then checked in for our flight to Moscow and were loaded on a bus out to our 737 size airplane or in russian Sa ma l'ote for a three hour forty five minute ride. We rode on the same company lufthansa, the seats were a little ruff and the terbulance was a little crazy but we made er.. brent didnt even puke on that one, so he started feeling better after his last visit to the bathroom in frankfurt wich was a long one... We arrived in Moscow around 530 i think we were all a little tired after the long flights making my memory a little fuzzy. made our way through that airport wich was just massive but we managed to find the baggage belt. As we exited through customs it was more of a pic and chose for the security guys that sit in a desk and watch all the passengers walk by. and wouldnt you know it i was choosen to be screened additionally, musta been the cowboy hat. he told me at first something in russian then after i looked at him in a blank stare he says " put you bags on the belt " so i unloaded my little cart loaded down with 200 lbs of stuff on to this baggage belt opperated by this kid who was to watch the monitor. I was certain that my knifes were as good as gone with this check so i was prepared for the worst. as they went through two pretty foriegn girls walked through and the monitor watch stopped them to check there passports and obviously throw some game out. all the while my bags went through the belt uncheck so i took the opportunity to load them back onto my cart and head out while i had the chance. it was a lucky one and im not sure if any thing woulda happened but im sure it woulda taken a lot longer to get through. out side we were greted by Vladimir aka Big Boss Vladimir is one scary looking dude hes about 6'1" and built pretty well for a 45 to 50 year old man, balding with about half gold teeth on his upper set. Big boss dosnt know a word of english but he is the man. he watched over us like a hawk and made sure the masses of people were standing back as we came through. we exited the airport and finally got some fresh air. it was warm and real humid and the air actually smelled clean even though we were in down town moscow. from moscow we made the journey south to trubchevsk by car. i like to think of vladimir as the mario anndretty of russia hes an excellent driver but like any other country he just drives at least 20 over at all times. we ended up leaving moscow around seven and after a quick stop at a type of rest area we made it to trubchevsk around 3 we picked up our translator sergey and he showed us to our apartment. we made our rooms up and went to bed till about 11 the next morning. apparently sergey had been ringing our door bell all day and we didnt hear a thing. probably because the bell sounds like a bird of some sort we thought it was outside not knowing that the noise was coming from within the house. finally i ended up answering the door and we were taken to the miratorg trubchevsk headquarters office where we met phil george and his wife lanea theyre both great people and have shown us more than enough hospitality. so any way we are getting to know the town a bit and our way around, its not to big but big enough. and since the first day we have been fencing, serveying, and learning. its been absoltley great. we also met a few girls that speek english one of the girls mother is an english teacher here in town she is an awesome women with more energy to go around we usually meet her on the weekends for dinner and sometimes her girls. any way theres plenty of stories to go so i think i will sign off now. keep on fencing!