Hey!!

Hey!! I have now been in Moscow a little over two weeks and I am loving it. The city is absolutely gorgeous. It has the perfect combination of historic and modern sites. The metro is really nicely organized and you can hop on it and get to any destination quickly. The center of the city is beautiful. The people in my lab took me downtown and showed me around. My lab has been extremely welcoming to me and have gone out of their way to show me around. Sunset here is around 10:15 pm and sunrise is at 5:15 am. Since it so light outside most of the time, people stay out later. In fact the streets are practically full at 1:00 am on weekdays. Another difference between Moscow and the states is that people walk around the streets all the time with open bottles. I was really excited to finally get hot water yesterday, I had forgotten just how much I had missed it.
Lab life is also quite different than in the states. Here I work in lab from 9am till 8 pm and sometimes later. The lab is like a family, everyone is really friendly to one another and they spend alot of time together outside of work. Also since everyone works so much in lab, there is alot of dating within the lab. Within my lab there is a husband and wife working together. Also some of the other people in my lab have significant others who work in biochemistry labs. Alot of the girls my age are married or engaged, which is shocking given the fact that in the states people tend to marry at a much later age. Its funny that in that states people tend to ask me if I have a boyfriend, while here they automatically ask if I have a husband. Last friday we had our first lab meeting. We sat around a round table where there was wine and cheese and listened to people present on the progress of their work. It sure beats the donuts and coffee that I usually had in lab meetings in the states. The other lab workers address the PI by her first name and the lab environment is pretty casual.
The dorm where I live houses a lot of internation students, so I have been fortunate in meeting other american students. I hang out with them after work and on weekends. I am lucky in the respect that socially I have two outlets- lab and then the americans. I should mention that in my lab everyone talks to me in russian and presentations are delivered in russian. While everyone speaks english, they chose to speak in russian. This of course has been a little bit of a challenge for me. You can imagine how happy I am to be able to speak english with the americans. I am happy to report that my russian skills are definitely improving.
Overall I am really enjoying this experience and am starting to adjust to life here. One thing that I am not used to is that everyone is always in a hurry and rushing to get places. I have even had a few instances where an old grandmother will practically push me out of the way because apparently I am not moving fast enough. i ahve to run now, but will be sure to write soon.