A few of the reasons why we like Moscow

It has to be one of the few places in the world where:

You must never grocery shop without makeup, because you WILL run into your pastor's wife.

You can realistically plan to do all your grocery shopping, attend your daughter's speech therapy class, and still show up at Park Day within a strict two-hour time frame, because your commute will never be more than ten minutes long.

You can start off on a walk, comfortable in the knowledge that if your child with the bladder the size of a pea has to go--and she will--you'll have options. In fact, you could simply plan your walk around the potential bathroom stops to be had at the houses of people you know. One per half hour is usually more than adequate.

When it does become necessary to stop, and you stop at the house of a friend, and the friend's bathroom is already in use, the friend simply runs to the downstairs apartment to see if the other friend living down there would mind if you traipsed down to use theirs instead. Of course they don't mind.

You can spend a pleasant evening walking to the park and stopping at your pastor's house to pick raspberries, and although they're away, you know they won't mind when your small daughter's bladder strikes again, and because it's Moscow, they have of course left the door unlocked for you.

On the way home with your raspberries you stop at the park and run into at least two people you know. Often more.

Along similar lines, you can omit to invite friends to go to the park with you on a Tuesday morning because, most likely, somebody you know is already there.

Your neighbors downstairs, and your neighbors across the street, and your neighbors in three out of the four apartments over the hedge, and your neighbors next door, and your neighbors around the block are all Christians. Most of them go to church with you.

There are more people you'd love to spend time with than you actually have time to spend. And that just about sums it up.