"It's snowing dippin' dots!"

In typical Russian fashion, spring has been elusive here in Moscow. There have been just enough warm days to raise hopes but it's far too hasty to call it spring yet. And as per Murphy's Law (or one of those...), the days that we venture out are usually the most miserable.

Last weekend, the Americans went to Catherine the Great's Palace in Moscow. Though it was on-again-off-again gray and damp, it didn't actually start snowing until we were on our way back to the metro--kudos, Moscow for that...The palace and grounds were absolutely beautiful, I guess a perk when you're royalty, huh? We never made it into the palace itself but we really didn't need to. It was great to just walk around and be outside amongst the cool architecture. Once it started to snow, we found the little cafe on the grounds and enjoyed some coffee and blini while overlooking the palace.

Today, we took a field trip to an extension office near Sergiev Posad, which is about an hour outside of Moscow. After we toured the extension office, we took a side trip to Sergiev Posad and I was able to attempt to recreate the pictures I lost when I lost my camera. Of course, it was gray and raining the whole time so I think they lost some of their effect. I was trying to be optimistic and say, "Hey, guys, it's raining! That MUST mean spring's coming, right?" We walked around a little bit, ducked into a coffee shop to dry off, and then came out to snow. They were small, round flakes that someone accurately compared to dippin' dots. I guess I spoke too soon. The weather really wasn't unbearable, at least it wasn't too cold, but what really topped off an otherwise pleasant day was the traffic jams we ran into on the way back. We have heard since we got here that Moscow traffic jams are awful and now we can say from first hand experience that we know this to be true. What should have been about an hour-long drive home took us over 4 hours thanks to 2 separate traffic jams. We were sitting on a bus in our damp clothes trying to make jokes about the experience but it was just a really long day. But at the very least, I'm glad I have pictures of the monastery to share now!

Moscow, please bring spring soon! Thanks in advance...

пока!