Yesterday I ran a dishwasherful of empty cat food cans. When I said to someone in Moscow that I would be doing that when I return home, they were incredulous. The city, which at some point was one of the most expensive ones in the world, still has no viable program of recycling. I took out a lot of trash while staying with bff's family, and it pained me each time to see that about one fourth of it would have been recyclable in California.

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Moscow has no greek yogurt at all (when I wondered why, D. thought that I was asking about yogurt imported from Greece), no high quality cat food, no vollkorn German bread (we have it in the US and they do not have it being much closer to Deutschland), and no steam-in-bag microwaveable frozen vegetables. So for purely practical day-to-day reasons I would be unable to survive .

What has become much better is the air in cafes. I did not go to restaurants but I did visit coffee houses and all were smoke-free. I did not see signs prohibiting smoking but just as a statement of fact, the air was smoke-free everywhere.

On the plus side, it was the season for the best sour green apples in the world that surpass the Gravensteins for me. And, the best vanilla ice-cream. But on balance, obtaining daily food is easier here than there.