Schutz and Scores: Russian Roulette and Safe Skydiving

After spending a grand total of 24 hours in the city of Moscow, Russia one sentence pretty much sums up my experience, "Moscow...where the weather and people are cold!"

Now, maybe that's a bit of a generalization, but compared with the friendly faces I had just encountered in Germany last week, the majority of passersby on the street just seemed downright angry. Maybe it was because they were cold. I would have been more than happy to ask them what they were all so upset about, however, English is not widely spoken in their neck of the woods, and they definitely weren't too happy about me speaking it to them with my speedy northern American accent. Despite the overall lack of smiling faces and English signage, I still ventured out into the city with the crew and attempted to take in the local sites.

I use the word attempted because after taking a ten minute shuttle bus and completing a thirty minute walk, we approached the famous Red Square, only to the discover that a sold out festival was taking place inside the area. This resulted in our only views of the Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed, a landmark that I've always thought of as the real life Candy Land, coming from slight glimpses I was able to catch from slits in the tall barricades. Unfortunately, the only photo I have of the cathedral comes from a dinky post card, courtesy of the hotel gift shop. Here's hoping for better luck next time...

The Amazing Photo I SHOULD Have Taken In Front of St. Basil's Cathedral

Although we never made it inside the actual Red Square, we were still able to see the surrounding area, which was filled with loads of really cool historical landmarks and buildings with amazing architecture. Naturally, I did my fair share of whining about the cold, however, it was actually nice to stand outside in September without sweating, unlike some places (ya, Dubai, I'm talking about YOU)!

Outside The Red Square (St. Basil's in the distant background).

I landed back into Dubai late last night, and after a quick sleep, I met up with my friend Rajeev for another adventure. Today's quest led us to iFly, an indoor skydiving simulator. I've actually already been real life skydiving back in 2010, so perhaps I did this whole thing in reverse order, but, as I'm sure you've probably noticed, I've always been a little unconventional! It was somewhat similar to skydiving, as in I had the same amount of saliva being violently flung all over my eyelids, and in both experiences the wind just perfectly caught my already chubby cheeks, giving the illusion that my face was, in fact, just as wide as it was long! Real life skydiving had a much cooler free falling feeling, however, it also came with the slight chance that I could die. The skydiving simulator felt more like I was just standing in front of the world's most powerful fan, however, it was in a fairly controlled and safe environment. Life is all about give and take, folks. :)