Our trip to Moscow begins in Denver on a Saturday morning.  After a relatively short flight to Dallas, we board our 10 hour flight to Zurich, Switzerland.  Since we had upgraded with miles, the first and business first seats were a welcome relief from our last trans-Pacific flight to Hong Kong in coach.  Our "long-haul" flight, on an AA 767 didn't contain an official first class, instead what they called a "Business-First" section.  However, it looked like a full complement of very professional first and business class flight attendants were on board - they were very attentive and a pleasure to make the journey with. 

In Zurich we had about a 4.5 hour layover, so opted to take the train into central Zurich and make the short stroll to the Lake.  Since we had arrived in Zurich at 7:30AM Sunday morning, the streets were very quiet.  After one false start on the downtown trams, we decided to walk toward the lake.  Arriving at the boat pier about 20 or 30 minutes later, we found none of the sidewalk cafes or shops that we had anticipated.  Instead there was the boat pier where various lake ferries were boarded, a small coffee/snack shop and lots of small boat slips.  So, instead of spending the morning sipping coffee (or something a bit stronger) overlooking Lake Lucerne, we headed back toward town, stopping briefly for a relaxing drink. Back at the airport, we anxiously awaited our flight to Moscow.  As expected, the Swiss Air officials had set-up a small passport checkpoint where everyone's Russian visa was checked before boarding the 3.5 hour flight to Moscow.  Uneventful, we arrived in Moscow's DME (can you say the Russian word that make up this city code-Domodyedevo?), claimed all of our bags that had been checked back in Denver, and after a few anxious moments, found our pre-arranged city transfer to the Marriott Grand Hotel.  Since it's illegal to arrive or depart Russia with local currency (rubles) you'll most likely be finding an ATM or exchange booth at the airport.  Don't count on the ATM's working - out of 3 machines; we finally found 1 that actually dispensed cash.

As we cruised along the motorway toward central Moscow, all of us were surprised how far out of the city we appeared to be.  All around were forested, rolling hills, farms and small clusters of roadside fruit stands.  The city sprawls along gentle slopes to the center around the Moscow river.  As we arrived at the river, we turned left and got our first glimpse of the Kremlin walls and towers.  The Marriott is very centrally located, on Trevorskya (or at least that's what it *sounds* like) Street, about a 15 or 20-minute walk from the Kremlin and Red Square.  The first evening our main goal was to get out of the hotel long enough to stay awake until the "normal" time here in Moscow.  After strolling the streets a bit, we happen into a sidewalk cafe that served beer, wine and great appetizers.  We enjoyed a cheese platter, cold summer soup, cold sliced duck and other appetizers. Overall, an excellent first experience of Moscow - The food was great, the local beers seem to be German pilsner style, and the young waiters and waitresses are fairly fluent in English - which is good since none of us can speak a word of Russian!