A Crash Course in ...Moscow?
Moscow: Day 2
The iPod alarm under my pillow went off at 8:45. I rolled over and snoozed it. Everyone stirred in the room...
Nobody wanted to move. I shifted my body in the bed. I could feel where the coil springs had left their impressions on my muscles. Straw would have been more comfortable, or dirt maybe... Needless to say the mattress was god-awful.
I wandered off to breakfast at a local cafe down the street. Croissant and juice on the menu... Pretty standard breakfast. After breakfast we walked to the Kremlin. It had begun to drizzle. I wasn’t wearing my parka, opting for just my fleece. At least I had my hat.
Our tour required us to check our backpacks at the coat check for 60 rubles. But they x-ray the backpacks before they check them! I have film in there! So I had to save the film again, instead dragging it thru the metal detectors and being felt up by the first of many Russian security guards.
The tour was very cool. The Kremlin is a very interesting facility. It’s walls and towers are extremely easy to fortify, as there are towers everywhere with views of the entire compound. The churches in the Kremlin were amazing. Absolutely unreal paintings, incredible architectural design, and an atmosphere unlike any regular church. The photos will surely not do it justice, but hopefully they came out halfway decent.
There was also the largest cannon ever built at something ridiculous like 1.2 meters in diameter.
I guess they were trying to make up for something else...
Another little tidbit: the red stars on top of the towers weigh 3 tons and are of ruby glass and are always illuminated; but the really cool part is they rotate like weathervanes as the wind blows...
We left the Kremlin and headed for the baggage claim. I pulled out some chocolate and fed everyone, while I ate my apple. These are the little things I picked up from my mother: always have food with you. This was the first of many times that I would feed the group.
It was at this point were we were also talking about the enormous sausages you can get in Wenceslas Square back in Prague. It’s no secret that they are huge (and awesome), I’ve written about it before... And it’s also no secret that I am into shooting sports, and am constantly prodded for this fact.
Thus Tania came up with the joke of the weekend. She looks right at me and says, “You don’t need a gun, just pack a sausage.”
Not realizing exactly what she had said, paused for a moment, before her and the entire group, myself included, burst out laughing. This became the source of so many other awful jokes for the remainder of the weekend... Including one that’s coming up.
So we are all starving, and head for lunch. We cross this huge bridge, carefully avoiding being killed by the traffic, and are treated to a view over the river of Moscow. Tania motions me into a picture with Meg with the Kremlin as a backdrop. I pull my hat off, fluff my hair, and say, “at least I look less like a terrorist now,” as everyone had been poking fun at me for my hat/scarf/gloves deal that made me look like a “cat burglar” or “terrorist.”
Tania snaps the picture and then proceeds to say, “Yeah, it looks like your packing sausage,” without thinking about it first.
Everyone was laughing again. Tania was bright red. And I was packing sausage.
We arrived at another cafeteria style restaurant. I had chicken and cake with apple juice, and then put my head down on the table for a power nap before the Russian bus boy told me that I couldn’t do that.
We left and walked thru the rain to a museum of art. The first floor was all older stuff, painted primarily on wood. I did get to see some of Andrei Rubelev’s work... That was the painter from the 3 hour movie all in Russian... See the entry on the 14th for the complete description of the pain...
Most of the work in the art museum was pretty cool. Upstairs was all oil on canvas, perhaps my favorite medium, or at least tied with acrylic on canvas. There were paintings that were upwards of 10 feet tall. Amazing stuff when you look at the grandeur of it all.
At this point nearly everyone was on information overload so we found the metro and walked back to the hostel. I dressed for the Nutcracker in my black suit, striped shirt, and champaign colored tie, with Bostonian wing-tips. Like a smart Eagle Scout, I skipped the overcoat/raincoat.
Smart...
We headed off to the Nutcracker. It was drizzling off and on, nothing major. Avoiding the 2 mile walk, we took the metro, yet it was one of those crazy, “where the hell are we?” moments that you sometimes feel. The metro system is essentially a giant labyrinth spread out 300 plus feet underground with multiple transfer stations and 12 lines...
A note about the trains: they are relics from the soviet area, and look that way. They are absolutely SCARY. The doors slam shut without warning like guillotines, and I actually had to prevent one from closing on someone. My arm is still attached... Thankfully. I also had to act like a pole for Alexandra, because she’s too short to reach the bars on the ceiling to hold on... So my left arm was the substitute while i held on with my right to the train.
The stations are beautiful, but so confusing... Not to mention the names are impossible... See more about the Russian alphabet below.
After emerging from the depths of hell, otherwise known as the Moscow metro, we initially were turned around, but Tatiana got us back on the right track. We arrived at the theatre two minutes before show time, and were quickly ushered thru security. Yes, there’s metal detectors at the theatre. I was wanded again, but I had no film this time so all is well... and there were no x-rays there anyways.
I believe most of us were in a semi-conscious state for the first portion of the ballet. The dancing was not particularly good, completely out of time; the music was okay, but not unreal; the story line was not as coherent as it should have been; yet the set was well done. The second portion was a major improvement over the first half. The dancing was much better, and the sets were even more beautiful. The experience as a whole was good, but not mind blowing. After the show everyone compared me to the lead male ballet dancer... The one in red tights and a codpiece. They insisted that we take pictures of me wearing the same outfit.
Over my dead body.
We decided to try and divide and conquer tonight as a result of the overly large group had had the previous evening. I ended up with a group of 6, myself included, who had dinner at McDonald’s. It was rather good, surprisingly. It wasn’t easy to order, but I got the job done. After dinner it was time to head to “Vodka Bar,” a bar further out in Moscow, that opens at midnight. FYI: the metros don’t run after midnight, so it’s all about cabs... More on this in a few.
We stopped at a local 24 hour supermarket for the girls to pick up pre-mixed vodka-tonics in a can as part of “pre-game.” I opted for water. The store had quite the supply of liquor too... High-end stuff. They had a 1999 Chateau Cos d’Estournel. I’ve been looking for the vintage 2005. So close, yet so far away.
We arrived to the Vodka Bar around 11:45, and it wasn’t open until midnight, so we ended up hanging outside Tolstoy’s house... I should have had a drink so I can say that I drank on the street outside Tolstoy’s house, but it’s the concept I find funnier than the actual action.
At midnight we were able to get in. We were proud that we hadn’t been face controlled out of there. I was put thru security again at the club entrance. We had some vodka shots with lemon, and the I changed to the more favored Jack Daniel’s on ice. But the atmosphere made the club even more fun.
The bar was a square. In the center of the bar was the wall of liquor, as is seen in any bar. On top of that square was a platform. On the platform there was a scantily dressed Russian woman. There were two go-go dancers that went back and fourth, both amazingly beautiful. The coolest part though was the flames that they lit up along the edge of the platform on which they were dancing. It was quite the scene.
It will surely make me laugh for a long time... One of the girls had an outfit that included a fur tail. Like a raccoon tail. It was cute and totally ridiculous all at the same time.
At around 2 Jennifer and I decided it was time to leave. We found a cab the minute we walked out of the club. I asked how much, knowing that it’s easy to get ripped off. 500 he said. I figured, fair enough, so I showed him a piece of paper with the address to the hostel. He talked to another driver for a second, and then lead us to the car. It was slightly scary looking, but we obliged, and he drove off like a crazy Russian driver.
He stopped at a metro stop that he claimed was where we wanted to go. I tried to explain showing him where we wanted to go on the map, but he insisted this was where we needed to be. Jen and I got out of the cab, and I gave him 500 rubles.
It was just then that I realized that we were 2 miles away from the hostel, near the theatre. Thus we pulled out our map and started to head in the direction we needed to, running into a pack of girls on horses just trotting the streets of Moscow on the way.
Here is the part about the alphabet. They use the Cyrillic alphabet, which is fine and all, but the map uses the phonetic spelling in the Roman alphabet. That’s a problem, because I can’t read the Cyrillic to sound it out to convert it to phonetics... Thus we were relying solely on dead reckoning and major landmarks, like the KGB building and the Red Square.
And it’s two in the morning.
We found our way home for 3... but I’m sure my dry cleaners is going to be upset with all the rain water I let my suit absorb...
Thus I hit the hay around 3:30 in the morning... Although I do wish I was actually sleeping on hay. It would have been more comfortable.