Idlewilde

It begins: an entirely new direction for the Golden Horn. Balanced blogging requires some exploration of the other side, and here is an opportunity to explore the ancient rivals of the Turks – the Russians.

It was an easy take off this morning. Went into the office for an hour or so before hitching a ride to the airport. The one irritation of this getaway is that we are expecting temperatures in the 30s or 20s in Moscow with snow melting into slush. Burlington Vermont, on the other hand, was expecting to shatter some warm weather records – maybe even get up to seventy. So, it felt sad to haul out the winter coat and fleece vest and generally get ready to bundle up again. Almost left the coat in Burlington airport, so perhaps there is some subconscious resentment about that too – but the trip promises to be fantastic.

Easy flight down. The plane was filled with a track team from Middlebury heading out to SanDiego – who were busily doing online library research in the airport and competed with each other over crossword puzzles on the flight down (students like this do exist?). Other than the man in front of me with the tattooed bald spot on his head (the track team thought that was pretty cool) – nothing remarkable.

So, here we sit for our long layover in JFK airport. Scudder, Jen and I got some good work done on one of our presentations – Kerry and Betsy doing much the same for theirs. Our flight is direct to Moscow on Aeroflot (the track team had enthusiastic recollections of Aeroflot apparently because it distributes free alcohol regardless of age). Hopefully it will be a comfortable flight and I will not arrive too fried, but generally I do not agree with long air flights overnight.

I am still getting clear about the schedule of what is coming up over the next week. I believe we are met at the airport in Moscow and taken to our hotel which was constructed for the Moscow Olympics and had the notability of being the largest hotel in Europe (something like 4000 rooms). We can do a little sight seeing or perhaps just catch up on sleep; some sort of dinner is arranged for Saturday evening.

My impression is that most days we have four or five hours of sessions with students in classes or perhaps with faculty; perhaps another two or three formal receptions of various types, but this should leave us some additional time to see the city both on our own and with some guidance from our hosts. The chief soiree should be the Bolshoi ballet dancing Swan Lake on Monday.

This is also the end of a very busy week. Lots to do at school, so I have not really had the time to think much about what is coming up although yesterday I was finally feeling that growing travel excitement.

OK – time to go find some kind of lunch/dinner meal so we can have a good bite before the flight. Next stop: Moscow.