“Our first visitor”

Well not sure he actually came to see us but Mr Obama is in town. Probably only a mile and a half away from the apartment.
Lots of excitement and plenty of officials on the streets. I wandered down to the square but it was all closed off for an hour or so. The local stations are having a ball reporting and everyone is trying to get the best background shot of the square so there is a little queue of camera men and presenters lined up at the end of one of the bridges. It should make the news where ever you are.

The general public seems excited and very pleased to have him here although I think there will be some hard conversations around the wepons area plus copyright and trade. The Russians have been considering joining the World Trade Organization for a long time but they are very good at using trade embargos to get their own way so not sure they see it as an advantage to actually join. When you can get what you want they way you do business now why would you mess with it.
 
Anyway life goes on. Judi is in Istanbul for a couple of days, the taxi was 40 minutes late but she still arrived at the airport with over two hours to spare. (got to love that girl). I have my list of things to keep me occupied so it looks like another trip to the mega center is on the cards. I made it there and back ok last time with only one wrong turn and for some reason in Moscow they do not like left turns (interesting that an ex-communist country does not go left) so you need to be careful. I was just following another car through what I thought was a cut through which ended up being the tram route. i was now facing the right way but not actually on the road. Lucky for me there was nothing coming so I could pass the tram stop (not picking anyone up of course) then mount the pavement to get back onto the road. It’s one of life’s little pleasures learning to get around in a foreign place.

I said yesterday I was backed up with pictures. So many but not all are on the Picassa site. 
This is the link http://picasaweb.google.com/nolanste/MoscowJuly2009?feat=directlink

This should be an embedded version. Not sure how big it will be but just showing that I am still learning about this stuff

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