Day 2 (Nov 15)- Moscow!

The view of Moscow from the plane was non-existent as the sky was overcast and gloomy. No big deal, we were thrilled to be in Russia! We got off of the plane and headed straight to immigration. They didn't speak much English, but it went very quickly. It definitely helped being toward the front of the plane as the lines got long after we were through. We got our luggage after waiting about five minutes and headed out of the baggage area to meet up with our Coordinator #1.

We found the sign saying "Petersons" and met Alonya our Coordinator. She was very sweet, friendly and her English was perfect. One of the other families who had traveled before us gave us the tip to get a room at the nearby hotel after they spent all day in the Domodedovo airport in Moscow. We had emailed our Caseworker before leaving and asked if this was possible. She connected with our Coordinator Alonya before we arrived and set up the plan. I would HIGHLY recommend this to any family traveling in the next month as it was $170 well spent! Our flight arrived at 10:30am Moscow time and our next flight to Kemerovo did not take off until 11:30pm that night so we had 13 hours to kill.

Alonya helped us find the shuttle and went with us over to the Airport Hotel. She got us checked in and up to our room. We said good-bye and then were able to sleep for 5 hours or so before getting up to take showers and head back to the airport. The shuttle picked us up right outside the airport (although they say its every 15 mins I think its more like every 30 mins) and dropped us off. One interesting note, the traffic in Moscow is CRAZY. It took us about 25 minutes to go a 1/2 mile!

We got to the airport and checked in as Aloyna had directed us to earlier. The check in counters are a bit different in that they are not set up for specific airlines. They have electronic monitors above each one and they change as the flight times change! Finding food in the Domodedovo airport was not easy. There are lots of cafes but everything was in Russian and we were surprised by how few people spoke English in the Moscow airport. We were in Russia though and of course Russian people don't expect us to speak Russian everywhere in the USA, so you have to just go with it. We ordered some tempura shrimp and some mozzarella sticks. We had pointed to the Chicken Sandwich on the menu (they had pictures) but the waitress shook her head and said no. :) We didn't know why but, what are you gonna do?

A few short hours later we boarded a bus to be taken to our Siberian Airlines plane. They don't have gates, so you are taken outside to board. We were headed to Kemerovo!