Yaroslavl, Russia

We arrived in Yaroslavl last evening after a very long day. I got up at 5.00 am in Copenhagen, checked out, walked to the train station with my 60 lbs of luggage, took the train to the airport and then waited in line for an hour to get my boarding pass on Aeroflot, the Russian national airlines. I have three bags, My backpack, a day pack, and an extra suitcase (which I will not take when I leave Russia. When checking in the lady said my backpack weighd 19 kilos and that the total limit was 20. This meant that I would have to carry on the extra suitcase. That seemed silly to me since most of the time they do NOT want you to take much on the plane with you, but no big deal. As i went through security my extra suitcase seemed to cause alarm. The lady asked me if I minded if they opened it. I said sure. But why. She said "Because it looks like you have a knive in there". Then it hit me--I did have a knove in there. My around the world book had said to get a good swissi ary knive and I had. However I had not intended to take that bag on the plane with me. Then when they opened my bag my big plastic bag of washing powder was on top becaus eI had washed clothes the night before. Wow--it looked just like drugs--the lady said what is this? Yippee---It ended up to be no big deal..just an hour delay but I was early.

Then we flew to Moscow, waited three hours until everyone else came in and then drove the 4 hours to Yaroslavl. A nice 15 hour trip.

Russia is as different as anyplace I have ever been. I have some pictures but I have not found a place yet with a USB port so that I can post them. I will keep looking. Today we had orientation, a city tour and our first Russian langague class. The 11 people who are in my group are a very interesting group. Ages 19-69, 4 male and 7 female, from all walks of life. I will write more about them in the days to come. I enjoy their company because they share a sense of adventure as well as a caring spirit. Nothing is impossible.
Tomorrow we start our assignments. I am preparing for being emotional unprepared.

I hope all is well with everyone.
BP