Language learning

We ventured out yesterday to discover a large shopping mall. Our limited lanuage learning has been bolstered as we studyed the important symbols. No we did not eat any - just had a coffee.

We shopped for some essential things to keep us going until our luggage arrrives in a couple of weeks.

We are creatures of habit and one of the things we keep forgetting is that on escalators you stand on the right hand side and leave room for the fast walkers on the left. Just like the roads this is opposite to what we know. The metro - or underground they say is the best in the world - not in the newsest trains as they are old rattlers - but in effectiveness to transports millions of people each day around Moscow. We are starting to familiarise ourselves - the long station names can be confusing so we just follow the coloured dots and instructions on how many stops to go through. When the language skills are developed a little more we might follow the letters.

There is much to learn - Ron discovered this week that you do not whistle ! it is thought to bring bad luck. We will be constantly learning and challenged as we grapple with a new culture. We look forward with much anticipation. This week will mostly be in the office studying files and trying to get our head around a very large Territory - 5 countries, 5 languages 5 cultures and probably 5 different ways of doing the same thing!