Embracing Ambiguity: Rolling Through Moscow
Post by Hanson Grant & Melody Lee
As we prepared to leave our hotel in Moscow to get on the bus at 10:00 AM, we were blind-sighted by the abrupt news that there would be no bus from the hotel to our next destination. We assumed that there would be a bus to pick us up with all of our luggage from the hotel to a World War II bunker before we would have to depart for the airport to India. This came to as a shock to most people, as many were expecting to finish their papers on the bus ride. Not only was the nearest metro station 15 minutes away from the hotel, but it was also snowing outside. Nevertheless, we trudged forward with our 50 pound suitcases, many of which were overweight, into the metro station, up an escalator, down two flights of stairs, and into a jammed metro car.
To make the story more interesting, we decided it would be wise to do a head count in the metro station and found that we were missing two bodies! Our group coordinator ran back to the hotel to find these lost souls while we followed our guide to the World War II bunker. Spread out along the streets, we stopped traffic with body shields so that the group would stay together as we walked along the road in the snow. After preceding to walk down 17 flights of stairs to the lowest point in Moscow, eating lunch at a Ukrainian diner, and arriving at the airport in one piece, we finally had time to relax and realize how crazy the last 24 hours had been. This is just one of the many times in which we had to embrace ambiguity and not let it get in the way of our final destination.