A Pittsburgh Hello

Jim had a few meetings that he needed to go to Houston, Texas soooo I decided to take the trip with him and stop off in Pittsburgh for a few days.....It was great to see everyone!

Alicia, Heather, Ali & Tyler, Tara & Molly & Timmy, and Me

The Snead's

The Will's

Cold War Tunnels

With one of my women's groups we toured the Soviet Cold War Tunnels which are located in the heart of the city way underground. The tour consisted of a tour of the tunnels and the old communication systems that they used. Then a movie on the Cold War from the Russian stand-point which was VERY different from what we were all taught in history class in the US.

The entrance to the tunnels from the street

Here I am with our tour guides granddaughter, Leeza at the entrance of the tunnels underground.

If you can believe it - they had old machine guns on display that you can actually pull out of the case and play with? So here I am with a machine gun.....

After the tour and the movie we all snacked on a "typical soldier snack" which consisted of beef porridge, brown bread, tea, and of course VODKA.

Here is our snack.....YUMMO?!?!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25664282#25664282

I thought you would all be interested in this the link to NBC's nightly news broadcast on the Cold War Tunnels....Even Zhenya, our tour guide makes a cameo!

Saturday Afternoon Lunch

This past Saturday was a beautiful spring day here in Moscow and a few of our friends got together for lunch at a great outdoor patio restaurant serving the best burgers in town - Scandinavia!

Jim & Martin (who is from London)

Carrie & Megan (who is from Dallas)

Victory Day

This weekend is a big holiday here in Russia.....Victory Day!

Victory Day consists of a military parade involving almost 8,000 personnel, 111 sophisticated tracked and wheeled military vehicles, as well as 32 aircraft and helicopters was launched on Moscow's Red Square on May 9th, when Russia celebrates Victory Day.

Victory Day marks the final surrender by Nazi Germany to the U.S.S.R. in WWII, often referred to as the Great Patriotic War in Russia and other states in the former Soviet Union. The parade was addressed by President Dmitry Medvedev, whose inauguration took place this past Wednesday.

The parade accompanied by a large military band of 550 musicians. Personnel dressed in WWII uniform, carrying historical military banners, are to be followed by the passing of sophisticated military hardware, including war fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, tanks, missile launchers and strategic bombers.

Military hardware was last involved in a parade on Red Square on November 7, 1990. No military parades were held on the square from 1991 to 1994, and the May 9 parade in 1995 saw WWII veterans marching in central Moscow. Troops resumed their participation in military parades on Red Square in 1996 and the first Victory Parade was held on Red Square on June 24, 1945 on the order of the then-Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Joseph Stalin.

Here are a few photos of the fighter planes that flew past our apartment window towards Red Square during the parade......only in Russia.

http://mnweekly.rian.ru/local/20080507/55327559.html

Ireland

We took off for a long weekend in Ireland..... here we are at

St. Patricks Cathedral in Dublin

We flew into Dublin and spent two days exploring the city of Dublin ate fish & chips and washed it all down with pints of Guinness. The entire country of Ireland is SMOKE FREE - so wonderful to sit in a bar and not dying of smoke inhalation....like we do in Moscow and Pittsburgh for that matter.....

We toured the Guinness Brewery - really neat tour! After the tour we each got a free pint of Guinness to sample....who knew that Guinness was so good!

After spending a few days in Dublin we set out for the west coast of Ireland to make our trek down the western coast of Ireland south to Cork and drive back to Dublin to fly back home to Moscow......

This was the first vacation that Jim has ever taken with NO hotel reservations - just the open road and our rented red mini cooper (that Jim had to have!!!) I was told NOT to reserve hotel or B&B reservations prior to the trip as you just have no idea what cute Irish town you'll be spending the night.....so we just played it by ear and ended up not having a problem finding a place to stay along the way......

Our first stop was a little town outside the Cliffs of Moher called Lahinch which is on the western coast of Ireland. After touring the cliffs we began our drive down the coast south towards the Dingle Peninsula to our next stop Dingle Town.

Shots of the Cliffs of Moher

Dingle Peninsula was a very neat drive and the town of Dingle was very fun -
lots of cute shops and great pubs.

Standing on Conor Pass

Jim standing at Dingle Harbor

After spending the night and the next day in Dingle we set off East down the coast towards the Ring of Kerry which unfortunately rained the entire day so the Ring of Kerry wasn't as impressive as Dingle Peninsula. We ended up driving to a town called Kenmare to spend the night.

A neat church along the drive towards Kinsale

The next morning we set off driving East again to a town called Kinsale which ended up being our favorite town. It's located on the Kinsale Harbor and made up of great outside cafe's and great shopping. After spending the day in Kinsale we began our drive North towards Cork and a quick stop to the Blarney Castle we were back on the road again towards Dublin
to catch our flight back to Moscow!