General impressions of Russia (or at least the two parts I've been to) -- The people here have been very nice to us and patient with my four words of Russian. A number of people in shops speak enough English to get by with and if not, we do well with pointing. One genius tools we've discovered is the calculator. I'm not sure if it's as useful in other parts of the world, but if you come to Russia it would be helpful to have a calculator of some kind. When buying something, the seller puts the price on the calculator and shows that to you -- it's one of the handiest things ever. I think it would be hard to be a frumpy young girl in M and SP. There are so many beautiful, tall, thin, and stylish girls here. And they wear high, high heels A LOT. We've asked about this and it's part of the ideal, I guess you'd call it, for the girls. A lot of people smoke here and I guess the young girls do it to hel[p keep thin. At the ballet last night, I was in line for drinks and there was a young girl at the little table with Mom. She showed up with an open salmon sandwich kind of thing and Mom said she downed it in about three bites. I wondered if she was on a date, excused herself to use the restroom (near where we were), and snuck in a sandwich instead. One thing you'll notice about M and SP is that both cities are very clean. Every morning someone is out sweeping up the sidewalks and/or washing them down. In both cities water trucks hose down the streets (at least the main streets) in morning and, in the case of M, many times during the day on the main streets. I guess part of it is out of necessity -- there aren't many public toilets in M (don't know about SP) and people will just step behind a building or a tree in the park. All in all, I've really enjoyed Russia. SP doesn't feel quite as "authentic" as M, but it is a tourist so it's easier to find people who can speak English.