While cruising thru the center of Moscow we happened on a giant honey show. This was such an unexpected delight. Before walking in I was feeling tired, but this soon changed as I began to taste test my way into all of the different regions of Russia.

My favorite honey is the kind that has royal jelly, but any pale honey I like a lot. Lunch today was honey!!! Anyway a much needed boost before a tour of one magnificent museum.

The Armory at Kremlin was an unexpected surprise. Because of the title I was expecting to be looking at armor and dungeons, maybe even torture machines used by rulers such as Ivan the Terrible. Sorry everyone no cameras where allowed.

The tour began with Russian jewelry from the 15th century, gold and jeweled book covers and dining sets, then to the armor, past multiple rooms of Russian gifts given to the Czar by foreign diplomats, famous Russian jeweled eggs, thrones, crowns, gowns, cloaks and finally carriages. What a magnificent collection!!! The amount of diamonds, gold, silver and precious stones in the museum were unreal.

I really enjoyed seeing Catherine the Great's dresses, but my favorite collection was the carriages. I have not ever seen one in real life before. I am certain that Cinderella's carriage was modeled after one of these. There is even an audio tour included with the price of admission that gives some very interesting information and makes me want to learn more of Russia's history. Like why did Ivan the terrible have so many wives?

Tonight I had a nice dinner at a friends home in Rubluvka, the Bel Air of Moscow. Anyway they had two very adorable and very big dogs. The larger one is 64 kg. If I was cold I would want her around.

Canada is playing in the gold medal match for ice hockey now, and like a good Canadian I must go and glue myself to the TV.

More tomorrow on my day off...

Moscow is a large city and here I am pictured above standing in the center. Many people everyday walk over this spot with a handful of coins, then throw them into the air while making a wish. What did I wish for? Well I can not say exactly but I will say this: That I stopped wishing for myself long time ago. I find it much more effective to wish for good things to come to other people. Not that I don't want wonderful things in my life today, because I do, but I am happier when I think of others more than myself.

I am entertained when I look back at my life and what was important to me a different times. Many years ago I awoke to the fact that resenting another person was actually more harmful to me than anyone else. I could understand this, but what to do about someone that I dislike for whatever reason, how do I let that go? It was suggested that I pray for my "enemies", that I wish for them everything that I would want for myself. Do this everyday for 2 weeks and after two weeks the angry towards them will be gone or at least diminished.

I remember the first person I prayed for, lets call her Sparkle. My prayer went something like this. God, please remove my resentments against Sparkle, please help me to forgive her for all of the pain that she has caused me both real and imagined. I wish for her all of the things in life that I would wish for myself. I hope that she has a nice car, a beautiful home, a job she enjoys, good skin, a nice body, lots of friends and vacation time. I release her with love.

How small my world was then, the funny thing is I ended up getting all that I wish for, but over the years my wishes changed to wanting to feel comfortable in my own skin, to practice compassion daily, to have a wonderful and fulfilling relationship with my family, to have stillness in my daily life, to have the time to exercise and take care of my body, to feel happiness, joy, serenity and peace everyday.

In my early twenties I was driven by money and wanting to be surrounded by really nice stuff. I worked very hard so that I could have the freedom to buy what I wanted when I wanted. It felt really nice to come home to my zen space. Today I am lucky that I get to spend most of my time traveling around the world. I get to take 23kg of stuff with me, which isn't a lot. Most of my personal belongings are in boxes. I think of all the money I put into creating Zen outside of myself, when ultimately what I really wanted was to feel peaceful inside.

I feel at peace today, most of the time, and I wish I had not bought so much stuff. But that was my journey and it got me to where I am today, free and happy, with many valuable lessons learned. I not saying that I am perfect or done growing, because I am not, but today I am feeling very evocative about change and the joy of it's continuous presence.

Please check out this video, people from 156 different countries singing The Beatles "Love is all you need" at the same time.

This song is one of my all time favorites to start, but when you have people from all over the world coming together for a single cause like this is very beautiful!!!

I cried...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7D2g5v ... r_embedded

Today I went and saw "The Wolfman" in Russian, it was great. To enjoy a movie where I understand only, please, thank you and the names of the characters, it has to be entertaining. I am sure I would have enjoyed it even more if I could understand it, but regardless I left satisfied.

This is the 2nd movie I have gone to see in the theaters in Russia. The first was Avatar in 3D on IMAX. I had seen Avatar in English at a regular theater around Christmas time in Canada, so I had a general idea of what was going on even though I could not understand the words. I still cried 4 times and although visually nice in 3D, I found it to be as visually pleasing on a regular screen.

Did you know in Russia that a new release DVD bought in the store costs from $7 - $12. I told Alexey that back home we pay about $26 and he was appalled. My brain misses seeing things written in English, and watching tv and movies in English. Maybe it is time to pull out my hard drive and watch some "True Blood", "Californication" or "Dexter". When I go to LA next I plan on planting my butt on Deedee's couch for 2 days and catching up on the last season's of all of these shows. The Olympics have been great, but I miss my brain dead time in front of the TV watching all of my favorite shows on demand without commercials. Now I am missing the USA.

Speaking of the missing the US, I miss hamburgers most. There is nothing like a juicy hamburger and french fries, with a chocolate milkshake. I tried to have a little taste of home and went to McDonalds. Despite all health warning and full well knowing this will not satisfy my deep craving for a burger, I did it anyway. Alexey was very disappointed that I want to eat garbage instead of nice home made food, but he couldn't have that it was that bad since he had a burger and fries too!

No St. Petersburg today and it looks like I will not get a chance to see it this trip, but I am completely okay with that. I am looking forward to getting to sleep in tomorrow, I only slept 5 hours last night and that is not ideal for me. We woke up this morning with the intention of going, but because our friend who we were suppose to travel with had a meeting run late, we had too options take the train, or go to the pool and get a good night sleep at home. We chose the pool and surprisingly I was very comfortable doing statics at the bottom of the pool (my least favorite activity).

Of all of the places in the world that I have had an opportunity to train, Moscow has one of the best set ups for freedivers, from beginners to world class competitors. Why? First off there are many pools in Russia that allow Freedivers to train at specific times. At the particular pool that I am training at we have 2 hours of pool time every day in a 25M pool, that is 6M deep.

On any given day there can be 14+ freedivers sharing this triple wide lane. Natalia Molchanova has created these diving programs that go from novice to athlete and most everyone there is doing one of them. Natalia says that using the programs divers slowing build to their maximum potential. "We have many years to dive."

The program is much different then anything I have trained before. Initially I found them to be very intimidating and uncomfortable because it is not how I have trained in the past, but I am finding that they are really helping me with my general comfort in the water. I also find having a 6M pool to practice equalization very nice.

Does anyone have an extra 2009 WC swim cap? I was borrowing Natalia's tonight and I ripped it on accident. I have never ripped a swim cap before and it only makes matters worse that it was someone else memorabilia.

Xачипури AKA Hachipury (pictured below)

Before coming to Russia I knew I was going to be eating some new and different foods. That makes me happy, I am an adventurous eater especially when I have a guide to introduce to to some new flavors.

What is hachipury? It is a delicious bread baked with I think it might be ricotta cheese in the middle and after it is baked a raw egg is put into the middle and the dish is served to you. To cook the egg you need to break off a corner of the bread and mix the egg with the cheese, then dig in, bread, dip mouth, hmmmm, bread, dip, mouth. This is so good. Hachipury is my reward after a hard training session in the pool. This dish comes from the Caucasian region of Russia.