Moscow

We are adding another place to our travel destinations for the year - Moscow. I've always wanted to go even if only to see St. Basil Cathedral, the famous onion domes.(Ok, so there are a few other things I'm interested in). It looks like this is very likely in July, provided we don't have any issues with the visas that are required for travel. We already tackled one hurdle of Stefan taking a few days for vacation.

I see that this trip is going to require a bit more research than many others, since it's not as simple as booking a flight and hotel. We will need to get a visa as soon as possible, although I'm still trying to figure out if it's necessary to have flights and hotels booked before or after. It seems to me that having a flight ahead of time would make a trip more concrete when filling out paperwork. It may not matter so much due to the Russian embassy issuing visas for limited amounts of time anyway. We also have to be invited and have our visas validated by the hotel that we are staying in. Everyone I talk to that has been tells me that it's very much worth the effort and hopefully we'll soon find out! The paperwork itself looks like it's an adventure.

As of now I'm not really certain what to think of the Russian culture, besides the few encounters I have had with Russian women, which I know does not sum up all of its people. It will definitely be a fascinating experience.

(photo by David Crawshaw)