I arrived in Moscow on Saturday May 18 after a good flight.  The hilight was the passenger next to me, a young girl (maybe 20) named Keyt (kate) who was returning from her first visit to New York and the United States.  She spoke about as much English as I speak Russian, which is none.   Well, to be fair, she did know some word she picked up in New York.   I showed her my list of Russian words and phrases with my homemade phonetic pronunciation guide and she had a good laugh.  She wants terribly to move to NYC (who would not after one visit) where her dad lives and does not like her life at all in  Moscow.  I think after she decided that I was not a really scary old ogre mean looking dude we had a nice conversation.  

No matter how much I travel or how many places I am lucky to visit I never cease to be amazed that they almost always let me in, and I don't take that lightly.  This is the foreign entry gate at Moscow.  I got through.  Only a 4 hour layover in Moscow then off to Perm, a city 500 miles to the north and east, 5 degrees south of the Arctic Circle and in the middle of the "white nights" season which means there are 22.5 hours of daylight a each day.  Cool new experience for me.

This is a view outside my dorm apartment window at midnight, including some folks walking about.

Very cool little dorm apartment for me stay, including internet.  

The school I am visiting is the 

National Research University of Russian - Higher School of Economics -Perm

It is a branch of the main campus of the NRU in Moscow.  Starting tomorrow I'll be working with 16 faculty members on stuff related to college teaching, promotion, tenure, etc.  I have a lot left to prepare but it is the kind of stuff I like.  Today, Sunday, I am touring the city and some museums with some members of the History Department here and I hope to have the chance to discuss the difference in perspectives we must bring to our history classroom.  I think it is very cool that some of these faculty were in college in the Soviet Era.  A very different world.