Today my arrival got a little bit closer. Today I went to the airport to change my tickets from October 1st to September 5th. Air France was flying from Atlanta, so I had the opportunity to exchange them directly with them. I got up early, left (the trip took over an hour in total), and arrived at 11:30. At the information desk, I found out where to go. Unfortunately, the Delta employee couldn't do anything for me and sent me to my airline's office, which was in some cramped little room and staffed by only one person. Everything would have been fine if he didn't start working at 2 PM. I had to walk around, drop off my resume for a job, and come back again. In line (1 person ahead of me), I met a Romanian guy; he had missed his flight yesterday through no fault of his own and was in a big hurry to change his ticket since he only had one hour left. We got to talking, and I found out that one of his favorite writers is Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov), Turgenev (love lyrics), Gogol (I told him about the second volume of Dead Souls, he was quite surprised), and Pushkin. Since he needed it more than I did, I decided to let him go ahead; it only took me 8 minutes, and I also helped him, I'm incredibly pleased with myself. I acted smartly in Moscow - I had reserved my seats, so no difficulties arose, I paid $40 and the sticker with the flight change ended up on my ticket. So, 5th New York, 6th Paris, 6th Moscow!!! And then, and then wild pleasure from everything I was missing, and finally, I will see YOU, whom I miss even more than any things...

I arrived home only by 4 PM and Sasha immediately suggested going to the mountains. There, carved bas-reliefs of presidents awaited us, a mountain we would climb, as well as a half-hour laser show. Since it was Friday, 5 o'clock, everyone was returning home from work, and we had to get quite nervous because of the traffic jams, although we arrived in 20 minutes. Entry costs $8, and in principle, you don't have to pay for anything else. We left the car and started climbing up (see the photos in the album). We climbed for about 30 minutes, the height is about 800-900 meters. Especially for Americans, there was an "ala McDonald's" establishment at the top, where one could restore "lost kilograms," which many were doing. At the very bottom, we walked around a Wild West-style town, and then headed to the mountain, under which the show was supposed to take place. In general, Americans are used to comfort: if they go into nature, say, in a "mobile home," there are parking lots where you plug it into "outlets" and charge it; if you go into nature, there is a special place for a campfire, barbecue, etc.; if you go fishing, it's in a pond where this fish has already been released. It's the same here - they brought mattresses, folding beds, portable refrigerators, food for an unknown number of people, pillows, in general, everything to feel not in the wild, but on their own lawn. The show lasted about 30 minutes. I liked the beginning and the ending. At the beginning, it was about what a glorious state Georgia is, the ending was the American anthem. In the middle, they showed some birds with eggs, a sponsor's advertisement (cows advertise a chain of chicken bistros, so the cows were in the roles of Jack Sparrow, Jedi, Gone with the Wind, etc.), about how the devil wanted to claim Georgia. All in cartoon style. Everything ended after 10 PM, we got home by 11 PM. In general, these hikes are great, you climb up, over the rocks, I jumped there like a little lamb, my roots "played up." And in the evening, when it's quiet, the moon is shining, you are sitting on the top of a cliff, the lights of Atlanta stretch out below you, countless forests, fields, you can see a horse riding from a nearby town, you think: "Oh my! Such beauty, it's so good, and why isn't that person next to you with whom you would be ready to sit here all night? Why are you sitting alone?" I really liked my day, I can say for sure - it was spent usefully and I learned a lot of new and interesting things.