Friday evening in Russia

The first two days were painful. Even sleeping well the first night doesn't diminish being exhausted the first day, and not sleeping well the second night continues the cycle. But I slept well the third night and am feeling much more coherent overall.

Friday evening we all walked about twenty minutes to the metro and took the subway to visit the C family, who are Campus Crusade staff and old firends of the Ds. The metro was definitely a cultural experience. It was fairly crowded going in at the main station, and there were some concerns over losing children, but everyone had a buddy to cling to and we made it though together. The metro is way, way far underground. Once you put your little token in the gate slot you take the steepest, longest, fastest escalator I've ever seen down to the railway. When you're at the top you can't even see the bottom. It was a bit disorienting. Once at the bottom you find your train, do whatever it takes to get on, and go, really really fast. In the metro we saw a blind begger, a woman hawking vegetable peelers, and lots of kissing couples. Apparently the metro is where people go to kiss.

Apparently photos are not technically allowed in the metro station, and my hands were a bit full anyway, so here's a picture of baby O., who is four months old.

On our way to the C apartment for dinner Friday we saw this structure: there were jokes about the tower  of Isengard.

The C apartment was a two bedroom place on the 13th floor of a large complex. Their two-bedroom apartment was a glimpse of more middle class living, as compared to the very nice P apartment.

The C's treated us to pizza for dinner. With the eight D kids and three C offspring, it's a good thing we didn't have dessert because the party after dinner was already high-energy. Those kids could have powered the lights for the whole building.