I got to spend a week in Moscow at the end of February. I was there to hand over a prototype project I had developed.

It was still pretty cold. The hotel was located right by the Moscow River, and the footpath along the river was perfect for running, so I ventured out one morning for a 6 mile run. The idea was to run down one side and back on the other. That turned out to be a pretty bad idea, because only a half hearted attempt had been made to keep the other side free of snow.

That same morning, I decided to try to take the Metro to work instead of ordering a taxi. That wasn't such a smart idea either. It took me a good 45 minutes to walk to a metro station, and finding the right metro line to take once you're down in the metro complex wasn't easy. All writings are in cyrillic letters and I couldn't find the right colored (dark blue) either. It took a couple of attempts of trying different entrances and asking one of the guards with the big scary hats to finally find the right train. Two stations before I was supposed to get off, there was some announcement on the PA system and everybody left the train, except for me and some other guy that looked clueless as well. The train drove into a tunnel and stopped for 5-10 minutes. Then it drove back to the station it came from. I thought I better leave the train. Fortunately, another one came in on the opposite platform, and it looked to go the station I needed to go to. Once at the right station, I needed to get on a bus to take me to the office. That went relatively smoothly, however, the whole trip had taken 2 hours and the time was around 11am. No worries though, since most people in the office doesn't show up until after noon anyways.