What An Adventure

It is now Sunday evening in Volgograd and I am at Natasha flat after two very interesting days. To begin with the airline lost my luggage. so you can imagine when I got to Moscow and waited for all of the luggage to be loaded on the carosel and no where was my luggage. Luckily for me, the Moscow American Embassy representative was going to travel with me to Volgograd and she was waiting outside of customs. Thank goodness that I had activated a global plan for my cell phone as she called to see where I was. Natalya filled out about six forms and I needed to tell them eveything that was in my suitcase (hard to remember when you have been traveling 27 hours). Come to find out, the luggage was coming on the next plane from New York but we had to leave for Volograd before it got there. So with the necessary documents in hand we got on the plane for Volgograd.
We were met in Volograd by Gelena, Ludmila and Natasha, given flowers and taken to a resort out of town to spend the night. As part of our trip to the resort we took a car ferry across the Volga River. This ferry will only run one more day as a new bridge across the Volga will be opened by Putin on Monday.
My hosts knew that my luggage was lost so they had brought me pajamas, a clean t-shirt and a pair of stirup stretch pants.
I was welcomed with a traditional Russian welcome of cardivy (a beautiful scultured bread) and salt. The tradition is only real friends will eat bread with lots of salt. After a nice dinner of beef tongue, chicken, carrots, rice, watermelon, honeydew, cheeses and smoked fish I went to bed.
Of course, I did not have any clothes yet so today was dressing the same. We spent the morning at the Country Club Olympiad which is partially owned by the school. It is a beautiful setting with many cottages, tennis courts, a restaurant and a newly completed conference hall.
We then left for the American Center and passed by the hydroelectric plant. At the American Center I talked with about 20 students who are interested in attending college in the US. They had very good questions and I enjoyed meeting them very much. After the American Center we went to the Stalingrad Monument. We got there in time to see the changing of the guard and then toured the grounds. The monument is very impressive and the whole design tells the story of the 200 day battle in Stalingrad where the Russians held back the Nazis. (I will share pictures at a later time as I am not on my computer.)Stalingrad, now Volgograd was almost toatlly destroyed during this battle. The fortitude and determination of the soldiers are captured in amny of the monuments. There are monuyments all over the city as it is said there was a battle in every house.
Later - need to go to bed.