Can there be a calm after a storm?

So 7 years ago I traveled to the Baltic states, and now I am back…At this point I have hit them all…Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania…. and feel nothing different. Haha. So far, I am thoroughly enjoying my IBI trip, but it has been non-stop. At this point, I am sitting in the middle of Holland’s farmland with nothing to do and trying to catch up on the blog.

Sorry for not being available, but we have had a huge lack of internet in Russia….but that is life. So let me try to recap.

45 of us load up our tour coach for our journey to Riga, Latvia to catch the train. Besides the shirtless Lithuanian bus driver, the lack of air conditioning, and a long journey with nothing to see, we were ready for the journey to continue. Trust me, we are tired already and supposedly our time in Russia is supposed to be non-stop.

Best part…arriving at the Lithuania,-Latvia border and finding out it was closed. CLOSED? How the heck do two countries of the EU decide a border is closed??? Well, I guess they can, and that is what they did. Luckily, they graciously let us in since we have 45 tickets for the Riga train. Oh the train…packed with deodorant-less Europeans…Gotta love them.

7-hour bus ride and a 14 hr train ride, and we were finally in Moscow Russia! Of course, we had four nights in this glorious country, with so much to do and not enough time.  This is my second time to Russia, so I had low expectations, which came to fruition.  I had a ton of fun, but Russia is such a wild place. There is a ton of depression, alcoholism and corruption to an unbelievable extent.

Let’s try to hit some Russian highlights…

Chinese Iron Lady

Tried to order an iron up to the room to clean up my clothes a bit. We had no idea that we would be in corporate casual this entire trip! I have yet to wear and shorts or t-shirts…just tons of dress shirts and khakis.  My iron only took 25 minutes to be delivered and it turns out the lovely Chinese delivery lady went to the 7^th floor, not the 5^th and gave one of the ladies in our  group a hard time for not accepting the iron I had ordered….good times haha

Circus

Off to the circus. Dr. Lafrance took us to a Russian circus so that we could experience all the Russia had to offer. Though the Russian circus was more of an acrobat show, it had so much to offer. Women hanging off ropes, seal boy, strongest man that did weird things, tigers ready to eat their trainers, Russian clowns toasted with vodka, some poodles that walked on 2 legs. We had quite the time, and sure did laugh a little bit at the freak show.

Boat Cruise

Last night, we took a gorgeous trip up the Moscow River to watch the sunset and relax for the evening. It was the first time we could sit back and relax after our 7-11 schedule we had been keeping all week. We got to see a ton of great Russian landmarks and had a ton of fun.

Ballet

How often do you get to go watch a 3-hour ballet of Swan Lake? I highly recommend it if you get a chance. Nothing better than some stuck up 50 year old next to you with a Chinese fan and a pair of miniature gold binoculars…. hello lady…we sat in the 4^th row.

New Jerusalem Monastery

Among all the churches and gorgeous cathedrals we went to, this monastery was incredible because it was complete un-refurbished. The walls crumbled, the steeple was slanted and the seats were nonexistent.  It was a really incredible thing to see….a church just as it sat and was left….no frills or thrills.

Museum, Museums, Museums…enough said.

Our time in Russia ended with an early morning tour of the IKEA Russia headquarter which was the busiest store in the world, Needless to say, IKEA also managed the attached mall with the largest grocery store in the world with only 95 check out lines….I think they needed 5 more….supposedly with all open, there is still a line on the weekends.

Did I happen to mention my favorite corporate visit thus far? Mars Candy in Russia….Have you ever seen Twix, Snickers and M&M’s mass produced by the millions? We had the honor and pleasure to watch this incredible process, try M&M’s hot off the press and learn about the Willy Wonka of 2010.

Here I am sitting in Amsterdam. 6 am wake up call to head to Germany tomorrow. Tour of John Deer, then off to Heidelberg....and we are off again! 

Until next time....