Merry Russian Christmas!!

Dom

An amazing place for New Years. Felt very safe too with no less than three rings of security around. Never seen so many police/military. Russians must be gearing up for Sochi Olympics.

Heart of Russia

Weather baloon

Sending up hot air balloons, Russian style.

NYE

Near Red Square

Molly Greens

Has anyone seen an Irish pub round here?

The US embassy

Stalinism

One of the 7 sisters. The height of Stalinist architecture

Another Stalinist monument

Freaky dolls

Abacus

Life is tough when your playground is covered in snow

Lights everywhere at night

Goodnight

Wheels

Fred and i enjoyed playing with the landing gear. All the hydraulics looked to still be in working order.

Spaceshuttle

Russias first and only space shuttle now resides at Gorky park.

A Russian meal

On the train

Onto an icy runway

You could feel the plane sliding on the runway with the wind and the braking. Still was a pretty good landing. Everyone clapped when we reached a comfortable speed and i found myself joining in. Apparently they always do that here. Not sure why we stopped doing this in the west.

And into Moscow

Flying out of Stockholm

Fred

Another hotel bed to jump on

Oh no

The bottle-o is closed

A wolf!

Out in Stockholm

201 km/h train

Buttons galore

Freds dreams are like this

Buttons

Fred loves pushing buttons and here at Stockholm airport was a whole wall of buttons that kids can push and they make noises. Such a great idea.

The crowds at Garys

John and the twins

Labbacalle

4000 year old rock building. Very spiritual location.

In Mallow

On the bus

On the train

Ollie eating squid

Dinnertime

Wine time

Dublin Castle

Guinness in Dublin

Failte Ireland

Goodbye America

Writing in the snow

Neigh

Pretzel

The all American snack

Washington

Took Fred to the met

Kids tobogganing

Lone trumpeter