Moscow, Russia
Trip Start
Dec 10, 2005
1
23
61
Trip End
Ongoing
Moscow,
Russia
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Jerez-Madrid
With Leslie
After a busy day at work, Sheri drove us to the airport in Jerez. Our flight was slightly late as usual in Spain and we arrived in Madrid to discover that Leslie's large bag with all of her clothing was not on the baggage carousel. Major Bummer as she reported it to missing baggage. We dealt by trying to come up with best case scenarios and solutions to her lack of wardrobe at the BEGINNING of our trip. After some difficulty locating our hotel bus and realizing they had cancelled our reservations because Paco's did not call to confirm. They still had our room available so we checked in and went to the very brightly lit cafeteria for a light dinner and a bottle of wine to deal with the stress of the lost bag
Statue
.After a restless night...
5 June 2008
Madrid-Moscow
We were up before dawn to catch our 9:30 flight to Moscow. We arrived at the sirport at 6am-much too early but we wanted to be sure. Leslie and I went to baggage claim to check on her lost bag. As we walked past the luggage room, Leslie looked in and saw a large black bag. She said "That looks like my bag!" and we went to investigate. It WAS her bag!!! Oh, joy! Major relief and lots of smiles, we wandered our way to our departure gate.
Remember Leslie's inside out granny panties!
Our flight was an hour late for reasons we couldn't discern as they were announced only in spanish.
Note: I don't like middle aged spanish women. They were rude, pushy and constantly cut in line, ran over us or bumped into us with their luggage of which they had plenty. We decided then and there to skip the free 1/2 day bus tour of Moscow to avoid dealing them. We can do this on our own.
soldiers with lunch
The flight went well and we landed in Mowcow, got ALL of our luggage-major relief as we were flying the same airline as we flew from Jerez. We met our tour group and followed them and our guide "Igor", who looks like an Igor, to the bus. After a long ride into the city during which Igor talked almost non-stop in halting Spanish. It seemed like several people had no idea what package they bought and a litany of questions ensued.We finally got to our hotel. A 1960's monstrosity with a casino in the center, overpriced resturants and a money exchange that required no ID and gave no reciepts.
After chekcing into our room with some minor drama of the language kind, we went in search of food. More drama as no one seemed to know where the Terrassa restaurant was located even though it was heavily advertised in the hotel. We finally found it with the help of Igor and after a brief attempt to sit outside, the chill forced us inside. The view was not great anyway. We had beer, I had fish in saffron sauce. We both got a bit tipsy as conversation progressed. Back to our room to fall into bed.
6 June 2008
Moscow
Up and out by 9am. We double checked our itinerary with the info guy at the front desk and it was a good thing we did. We'd seriously miscalculated where we were on the Metro line. After he corrected our asumptions we easily found the Metro station and navigated our way to the Kremlin. The Moscow Metro is crowded but very orderly-they have rules for progressing through the system. People seem dour, rarely smiling and they will push ahead and seem to purposelfully walk into your path as they walk toward you
McDonalds
. Apparently when satnding on the amazingly long and fast escalators you stand to the right in single file and walk to the left. This is strictly enforced and your fellow passengers will push past you if you stand anywhere else. A woman pushed me off a train in her hurry and I almost fell into the gap between the train and the platform. As we left the station, we realized that our maps are good but are printed only in Roman letters and the street signs and Metro stops are in Cyrillic only. We made our best guess based on the onion domes a couple of block away and found the Kremlin. We saw a queue and assumed this was to get tickets.-Random thought-I keep breaking my nails and since I don't have anail file I keep picking at the ragged edges.
We stood there for several minutes as the line moved in fits and starts. We finally got to the sign and it was the line to see Lenin's Tomb where his embalmed (some say fake wax replica) body is enshrines and gaurded by dozens of very young military guys in full uniform. They keep your camera outside the restricted zone to prevent photos being taken.
It was an odd experience we shared with a small group of Chinese men which seemed apropos! I didn't look at the bosy much, it looked fake, like wax and it seemed wrong to stare so we kept moving through an odd cemetary to other dead Soviet leaders and thinkers around the back of Red Square which is closed to visitors for some unknown reason. We had to figure out how to get back to the beginnig to retrive our cameras which took us through GUM- the most famous shopping area/mall in Moscow. We eventualy figured it out and got our property. We then walked along the outer wall pof the Kremlin to the ticket area and got tickets for the Cathedrals and the Armory.
building
The Armory is the main repository of Russian accumulated wealth and booty. It's well done and easy to manouver around. We saw Catherine the Great's dress which seems much too small for the woman whose rather rotund portrait was painted right behind the tiny but gorgeous dress. There was a room full of amazing coaches with huge wheels and very ornate carvings. What a way to travel! There was a special exhibition of Cartier jewlery on show. It was stunning, sparkly and gorgeous and I discovered why I don't buy jewlery for myself. I find I don't like the cheap stuff I can afford. My taste is much better than my budget. There were tiaras, amethysts (purple), blue sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, coral and pink rubies-Random thought-Moscow is EXPENSIVE! 25 rubles to the dollar but still-Wow!
The Armory also had a collection of ancient fur lined crowns and ancient thrones-including an ivory one for Ivan the Terrible who, in medieval times, united Russia for the first time but tended toward paranoia and murdered his only competent hies-his son. His retarded younger son ruled with help but things deteriorated after his death without an heir. The Romanovs eventually came to power as a result and ruled until their overthrow by the Bolsheviks in the 1910's.
On the Cathedrals, several Golden Turnip Tipped Churches in a pleasant little courtyard. One was closed for renovations but the others were lovely.
Church rounds:
1) closed
2) Wow-snging monks; archangel
3) Dispostion of the Robe-small
4) Wow again-icons and paintings on pillars and on ceilings
Gorgeous chandeliers
-Cathedral of the Assumption
Jesus faces in highest ceiling circles-heard the preists singing and selling thier CD's
kremlin church
.Ivan the Great Bell Tower
-Cartier exhibit
-Assumption belfry
Palace-Small
The Great Kremlin Palace and the Faceted Palace were closed and not open to the public.
They were breathtaking-literally!
Our search for lunch was typically frustrating in a new country. This time it's complicated by a completely unrelated language and an alphabet that looks enough like our own to confuse us. We eventually went to one of the more touristy restaurants just outside the Kremil where we had good pizza, beers and people watching. There were 2 men dressed in black suits with earpeices sitting at the entrance to the outdoor restaurant. We speculated on thier purpose as they didn't eat and spent their time intently watching people. Since we were near the seat of governments for Russia we wondered if they were bodyguards for some political bigwig or mafia members-we are in Russia after all. Our waitress helped us out by modeling a couple of Russian words for us.
kremlin church
We were both getting tired so we made our way to the southern part of the city to find a pub and restaurant recommended in our guidebooks.We got lost almost immediately and tried to stop for a beer and a look at our map but couldn't find a bar-we stopped briefly at a vegetarian/tea place which served beer, wine and cocktails but were all alcohol free.
We stopped in a map shop to ask directions and the nice woman helped us by pointing out that we'd been walking the wrong direction. Our maps we'd been using only had Roman letters while the street signs were all in Cyrillic so we had no way of checking ourselves. She sold me a map with both sets of lettering which was much more helpful and directed us to the correct metro station for our desired destination.
More walking on feet that were getting sore and we timed it just right to be in the Metro during rush hour-again!
We successfully got to where we needed to be. It's a cute neighborhood in the Zamoskvreche section of the city. We found the pub and settled in the bar with a couple of beers to people watch, read and rest our weary feet. Leslie noticed that there were very few women in the bar but the men left us alone.
The pub was called Molly Guinn's and was cute and homey as was Uncle Vanya's, the reataurant we found in both our guide books which was one block from Molly's. It was cute inside-on one in these places speaks english although they usually have menus in english so we point to our selections and hope we get what we think we're asking for. We discovered the names of several different types of dumplings. The food was okay but I guess I expected better since both of our guidebooks recommended it
red square
.We metro'd it back to our hotel by 9pm easily and crashed after a little TV. We chatted a bit about what we want to do tomorrow.
There was a loud thunderclap early in the a.m. but it was clear by the time we woke up. Remember the broken curtain.
7 June 2008
Moscow
We ignored the alarm and woke up around 9am.-we missed breakfast but I needed sleep more. It took awhile to get going as it was chilly when we left the hotel so I returned to our room to get my sweater. Then, halfway to the Metro stop, I discovered that my coke had leaked all over the inside of my bag and things inside. I returned to our room again to wipe it down and clean my bits and peices that were wet. At least Diet Coke doesn't have sugar so it wasn't sticky. Laslie was patient with my issues. We finally made it to the Metro where we successfully bought tickets for 5 stops and paid the correct price this time. We missed rush hour this time but it was still very busy down there. We're getting the hang of the rules and how to navigate the system.
our hotel
Random thought-people keep talking to me in Russian which could either mean I look local or they don't even consider that I'm a tourist since it's still a nascent industry here.We arrived at Red Square to see St. Basil's Cathedral. It's amazing-it looks unreal like candy or a child's toy. It makes me smile. It seems like a fun and welcoming church. Like there might be clowns inside as part of the service.
Leslie's book said it was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible who had the architect blinded to prevent him from matching or surpassing his accomplishment. It was named for Basil who was classified as a chuch fool which protected him from Ivan's wrath so he was apparently a vocal opponent of Ivan's. It's ironic that Ivan's glory was named after his greatest nemesis. Inside looks like a typical Orthodox church but it's a warren that's easy to get lost in and the stairs going up are huge! Heard another quartet of singers singing and selling their CD's. This group were not priests. We came out of the church to discover that they had opened Red Square completely to foot traffic. They were setting up for some kind of concert as they had built a complicated stage in an hour or so. We walked around the square-if Lenin's Tomb is open, is the Square closed?
Walked around the back of St. Basils to get photos from many angles-it sucks getting old-my feet are killing me
red square
. I popped a second rx anti inflammatory even though I'm only supposed to take one a day.I'm getting tired of the writtenlanguage barrier which makes the spoken language sound simple. My language translator gives me the Russian words in Cyrillic which I can't even begin to figure out how to pronaounce.
Russian parents put hats on their children alot.
I'm really glad they opened Red Square-it made the experience more fun. I enjoyed imagining the history that's played out here. We then limped back to the Metro to go visit Gorky Park. Instead of being a public nature space, it an amusement park for families with rides and beer gardens where we spent most of our afternoon drinking beer.
Leslie is a true animal person.She was very concerned about the animals kept here in the park to take photos with park goers. They included a small tiger, black leopard, chimp and baby cougar.
We're beginning to figure out the metro with little difficulty-we need to match our destination on the Cyrillic Metro map Lesie has to the signs in the stations to determine direction. These trains always seem to be busy.
When we got to our hotel at dusk it was sparkling
St Basils
!8 June 2007
Moscow
Shopping day. We slept in again. It's nice to travel with someone who's pace matches mine. We packed and left our luggage in our room for the porters to take as advised in the letter left in our room yesterday by the tour company.
We quickly figured out how to get to Arabat street using the Metro. Arabat is a shopping area full of restuarants, gift shops and street performers. The waiters and shop keepers actually spoke and understood english most of the time which was a nice change of pace.
I'm impressed by the quality of souvenirs on offer. I bought most of my items from a shop from a girl named Irina. She was fluent in english, interested inthe world and agood little salesperson. I'm pleased with my purchases as is Leslie. We had our requisite beers in a cafe to rest our sore feet.
The weather has been amazing all through our visit. Today we had a brief downpour which passed quickly. We managed the metro for the last time and returned to our hotel to wait to go catch our train to St. Petersburg.
We dsicovered that the porters had our luggage and wouldn't give it to us unless we paid the 60 rubles for eaach bag. This was an unpleasant surprise.
We met 2 spanish girls traveling on the Basicao plan like us. They helped us with translating the instructions from Igor.
touched up
We boarded the bus and left on time. They showed us a movie they had made to sell o people on the Classico and Completo plans. When we got to the train station, it took some time to sort us all out. We ended up roommates on the 4 person sleeper car with the spanish girls named Melmo and Carmen-both are government economists in Madrid. We taught each other our languages and settled in for the ight.It was better than trying to sleep on an airplane but I still slept very little as I wasn't tired, it was noisy and the ride was bumpy. Food was in our room but the shared bathroom was disgusting and I avoided it as much as possible. We dressed and washed quickly.See St.Petersburg entry for continuation of this trip.
