Vsem bolshoy pruvet!! ( Big hello to everyone)

I will start this with my foot update. It is slowly getting better day by day and I am hoping to start hitting again Monday. These little nagging injuries are not very convenient in the their timing but what can you do! But honestly after playing for nine months, you should start booking rooms at all the local tournament hospitals in advance. J/K!! I have been getting so much treatment that I'm not quite sure which one is helping. Is it the magic cream, the hot and cold therapy, my trainer's potions, or the needles that poke out of my foot daily for twenty minutes?

My week in Moscow has obviously not been very successful, so let me complain about a couple more things before we get to the positive. I don't get to see real autumn very often, but boy have I seen it this week. Actually, I am very curious to see what the suicide rate here is. I mean I have only been here for ten days, and if it wasn't for today's sunshine, I would have told my bodyguards to put me on suicide watch. Ok I might be exaggerating a bit, but how do people survive in such depressing conditions!!
Traffic traffic traffic! I think I know what the problem is......no real parking lots.....or rules.
Out of all countries, Russia does NOT, I repeat, does NOT have a starbucks!!! How is that possible! Let me speak from a business women perspective.....that would make so much money!!

Ok now that I have gotten all the bad stuff out of the way, I will move on to the good stuff. Because of the rain, I was actually quite worried that the only cultural therapy I was going to get on this trip, was the fake Mona Lisa hanging in my room. But today, yesterday, or tomorrow ( depending on where you live) was a beautiful day in central Moscow, and I got a chance to take a walk around the city, enjoying the crisp air. ( Crisp air is actually an understatement.) I took a lot of pictures, which I will add pretty soon. Michael got a chance to practice his basketball skills at a little stand that you usually see at fairs, but Moscow decided to add one just outside the square. He won a huge stuffed rabbit, which he made me carry because he was too embarrassed to show all the beautiful women here that he owns a stuffed animal. We saw a little girl crying that was only about one year old, and decided to give her the rabbit, which was exactly twice her size! She immediately stopped crying and the parents were pretty speechless. Good happy story. I also managed to slip in a little shopping trip to the local mall called Tsum, a relatively small Saks. That's about it!

Mike is still on a roll with his quote's. Although he's convincing me that I only started paying attention to whatever he says since I got my website......actually he's quite right. I ordered some blintz with black caviar the other night, and was offering some to my team. Of course Michael, not the fancy type, denies my offer and says " It's the same thing as getting a crape and pouring a bottle of salt on it, except it's a lot cheaper."

Let me start this little paragraph by saying that my dad has been in Russia since the Open. So during lunch on our second day in Moscow, we're all sitting there pretty beat, all quiet in our thoughts thinking 'here we are again'. Out of nowhere my dad goes "I'm absolutely exhausted, this jet-lag!" And this was said with a straight face. Mike and I are usually pretty good with replying, but couldn't construct a sentence after that one.
 

I just finished reading this well-known book called 'Lolita'. You know how some books are hard to put down because either something is about to happen or you're dying to know if they will finally hook up ( at least I do, haha), well this one was so shocking that I couldn't put it down. The writing was beautiful but the story.....pretty crazy!

After my pulling-out press conference, I did a small autograph session for the Bank of Moscow. They laid out posters, programs, t-shirts, and tennis balls.......fans got to choose whichever item their heart desired. The t-shirts were very popular and just as there was one remaining, I saw these two pretty old grannies next up in line. Both of them realized that there was just one shirt left, sprinted towards it (at a granny pace), grabbed it from both ends and literarily started tackling one another. The one with the bandana won, and I honestly think the other one is still desperate to get a good hit at the winner. Who cares about the autograph! They need a free shirt!!

Yesterday we had a group dinner of about ten people at this see-and-be-seen place called Prado. When I asked for the check, our waiter said that someone at the restaurant had taken care of it and passed on a message that he's been my fan since I was ten. Ok no joke, but our check was for a couple of grand! If this mystery person ever visits my site....thank you!

Anyways thanx for reading thing this.....is it a little too long? Hope it's not too boring.

Toodles, Maria!!