Looking back onto the past (I)

Today, I checked some photos from some years ago... March 2006! Gosh, it feels like ages ago. Life is too complex and many decisions have molded my life since those happy days at ISU. Back at that time, I was in Russia, in Moscow, in maybe the most exotic country I had visited so far! That trip was really cool and I will always cherish those memories of days with great friends.

The next photos were taken during our visit to Energia, one of the most important Russian aerospace companies. They put up there Sputnik, Laika, Gagarin, Tereshkova, MIR station... So many legendary names...

This is one of the first manufactured mock-ups of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite around the Earth:



This is me within the Soyuz!!



Naoko was also in the same capsule ;)



And take a deep breath... the capsule behind me is the original capsule where Yuri Gagarin became the first human out there! It gives me the chills to think I was there and could even touch it. (So different from the American or European approach = the capsule will be ultra protected in some high security museum)



Part of the group in St Basil's Cathedral in the Red Square.



And in the metro in Moscow, just at the entrance of "our" metro stop.



One they, we went to Star City, where astronauts are trained. Everybody who want to fly on a Russian spacecraft must train here. Look at that centrifuge! amazing...



And a cool mock-up of MIR space station, for astronauts to get familiar with the actual thing:



More of Moscow, a beautiful cathedral not too far from the Red Square and Kremlin:



With some cool lunar probe in the Aerospace and Science Academy (or something like that...) in Moscow:



In the opera!! It was in Russian, so I did not understand anything of the play... but it was cool... at least I can say I was in the Opera Theater in Moskowa!! ;)



After such intense activities, the metro was the perfect place for a nap! ;P