Super excited! Cold Days by Jim Butcher and Trapped! by Kevin Hearn are both released at midnight tonight.

My intention was to re-read the Dresden Files series before I got started, but I have failed that. I am only up to Dead Beat (book 7). I read Quicksilver, the first book in Neil Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy, and since it is an extremely long and dense book, it took way long to finish. PLus, it's been busy this year. I'm just going to read Cold Days and then get back to Dead Beat when I'm done(with Trapped as well, of course), since I usually re-read the new DF book immediately anyway.

In this read through of DF, I have really seen a lot of foreshadowing and tidbits that I never noticed before. I think in the last 2 books, we have been let in on some things that really shed some light on background from the early books. I guess the short stories as well.

I don't think I'm going to re-read the Iron Druid series again right now. After all, it's only been a couple of months since I read those anyway, but who knows. Once I finish DF again, I may need a fix. I guess I also have a list that Peter gave me that I need to get back to as well as the stack of graphic novels that Mack gave me.

Final Day. Today's plan is a final museum with Sergey, and then a big Lunch with everyone.

The Museum was was interesting. Was centered around the history of people in this region. They had artifacts from Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and right up to the Mongols and Cossacks. The Museum also had a large collection of Taxidermied animals from the region from insects, and small rodents up to timber wolves and bears and including lots of birds and fish.

Lunch was at a German beer pub place. Weirdly, I've noticed this thing in Russia... These restaurants have themes like this, but the food is all the same... not matching the theme at all. The guys even drank vodka instead of beer. Seems a waste, but it was really good for me as I got a stab at some of the more Russian dishes, which I will not be able to get in the US, or at least in Atlanta.

Getting packed up. My alarm is set for 4AM to finish packing and get ready to go to the airport. Igor and Andrey will be picking me up to go at 5AM. My flight is at 6:50AM. Next update will be Stateside.

Victory Day today. Met Andrey and Igor to see the Victory Day parade, but we ended up really just walking around as the police had roads very weirdly blocked against pedestrian traffic. if you wanted to walk from one part of the square to another, you had to block around far from the square.

Later I met with the two Dmitrys and there significant others, Rita, and Ilona. We went to see the victory day fireworks, and once again, this entailed a long walk around the city to find a spot where we could see the fireworks. I had a very good time. Seems like we had a lot of good conversation, and these were my first guess at my apartment, as thy came up to wait for their taxi, which took a long time. Oh, also they took me to a really nice supermarket that might rival a small Harry's. I wish I knew about that place from the beginning.

The weather has been pretty cold today. For the most part it has been cool, and a few day really warm, but this was the first cold day.

Nothing happened today. I just walked around a bit, then met Igor and Andrey for dinner and strategy session.