gonna keep this all brief-like, on account of I'm still sick and plenty jet lagged.
russia was absolutely wonderful, and I can't wait to go back. the trip over was grueling, ended up with a six hour layover in denver and a 10 hour (!) layover in frankfurt, and on the flight from denver to frankfurt I was stuck next to a very beautiful and very sick grad student from turkey, who proceeded to cough and sneeze in my immediate vicinity for about nine-and-a-half hours. which didn't seem so bad until about my third day in russia, when I got really, really sick.
I ended up spending way too much of my vacation in bed as a result. the temps averaged between about 0F and -15F, which made going out and doing stuff while I was sick pretty difficult. but it was really beautiful, and everyone was really nice.
got to visit a lot of friends, and make some good new ones. they had a bunch of neat looking hunting and fishing shops, but I didn't get a chance to make it into any of them during store hours. the friends I was staying with bought me a really great coffe-table book about knives, but I was a little sad to see that there weren't any busse family knives in it. some cool looking russian blades, and when I go back I'm gonna make sure to track some down.
the volga river was frozen with ice thick enough to drive across, so people just took their cars to the city across the river instead of using the bridge. it's really surreal to see. imagine someone freezing the mississippi and then a bunch of cars and busses using it as a giant road. something like that.
loads of good food that was really cheap, and the old buildings were gorgeous. I want to go to st. petersburg next trip if I can, but samara is great. and the new year's celebration is insane. people light off huge amounts of fireworks every night for an entire week, all over the place, for hours at a time. I still haven't dumped my SD card onto my HD, so I don't know if any of my pics really turned out, but when I do I'll put some up.
missed you guys a ton, didn't have net access there, and it was weird being away from the yard, and weird not having my EDC. new pants from jeff came while I was away, and I'll put up some new pics in the next couple of days. now it's back to nyquil and work. hope everyone had a good new year.

The volga river was frozen with ice thick enough to drive across, so people just took their cars to the city across the river instead of using the bridge. it's really surreal to see. imagine someone freezing the mississippi and then a bunch of cars and busses using it as a giant road. something like that.

That's GREAT W/D !! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />