Last Full Day in Russia - Day 5

Our last full day in Russia was spent on an airplane and in a car (literally, the entire day)! We ate breakfast in Perm (blini, of course) and then headed for the airport. We had about 30 minutes after breakfast before our driver was picking us up, so Troy & I took a quick walk up the street. We saw what looked like a church, so we headed that direction to take pictures. Since our time was limited we quickly snapped the pictures & headed back. Once we got back to the hotel I showed Tatyana the picture we had taken and asked her what church that was. Her response....."Stephanie, that's a mosque!" Yes, this preacher's daughter and her husband, a deacon, never bothered to look up to the top of the building to see there was a crescent instead of a cross!!!! All we could do was laugh!

We headed to the airport and boarded our flight back to Moscow. The flight was uneventful (my favorite kind)! We actually landed in Moscow early (it was around 1:00 pm Moscow time). Tatyana told us that Pasha would be taking us straight to the American Medical Center to have our 8 doctor physical and that Ludmila would be waiting for us there. We all got in Pasha's car. Not far from the airport, we dropped Tatyana off and said our good-byes to her. Pasha, Troy & I then headed for the medical center. We thought it would be a fairly quick drive. WRONG!!! We got stuck in the worst traffic jam I have ever seen! It took us almost 5 hrs to get there! 5 hrs!!! I was a nervous wreck because I knew we would miss our appointments and we were flying back to the US the next morning. We finally arrived at the medical center a little before 6 and poor Ludmila had been sitting there waiting on us since 3! Thankfully, the doctors waited on us.

The physical itself was no big deal. The psychiatrist kind of gave us the third degree, but we just answered honestly and as kindly as we could. We finished up there around 8:00 pm and headed to Ludmila's for dinner.

Dinner was fantastic, of course. She bought us some champagne so the three of us could toast our meeting of "little man". The three of us sat at the table and talked for hours. It was wonderful! Russia was actually beginning to feel like a second home.