AAAAAHHHH MOTHERLAND!

Ok, to those of you out there who are actually my loyal followers... I'm so sorry this is taking a while to get to... I do realize Russia is what everyone has been waiting for, and I swear to you, I did in fact go to russia... it just happens to be that going to russia followed quickly by home and then school is not conducive to blogging. I also appologize b/c this is going to be a super long post. I'm just trying to divide things by city... but Moscow is taking up a lot of time...

Anywho, for those of you who don't know the title reference: The end of the world

So i rolled into the motherland on Sunday... and you've already heard about that... turns out there was no spa... at least not one anyone could direct me to, despite there being a number and a floor number... it just happened to be on a floor that didn't exist in my hotel. Yes, i tried to find it anyways.

The first night I ate alone. Sometimes this can't be helped... randomly showing up in russia is one of those times. I did recognize some people from the plane I was on b/c i loved the girl's jacket (it was a grey sweatshirt with colored circles)... later in life we learn that they are actually a couple on my trip. There was another single girl at a table in front of me. When she got up to leave i was just like... Hey, do you speak english... "yes"... "you aren't by any chance on the intrepid trip, are you", "why yes I am", "so am i", "excellent".... This was my new aussie friend, Cathy. We made arrangements to meet up the next morning and take on Moscow... cause like i said... big... not really the type of place to wander around solo your first day.

After more exploration for the spa, I ended up just heading up to my room to chill out. There were 2 english speaking channels: Russia Today, and BBC International. Let me tell you... in Russia, I got a completely different story about what was going on w/ Georgia and South Ossetia. On Russia Today, they were flashing the word "Genocide" and mapping out how Georgians has invaded the autonomous region predominantly inhabited by russians, and were forcefully commiting genocide against them and how the Russians had gone in afterwards to protect the innocent. BBC had a slightly different perspective. But in general by the time I got back to the US I didn't, and still don't have the clearest picture of what went on while I was there. And have now developed severe media trust issues.

So bright and early the next morning we hooked up at breakfast, and headed for the metro... ah, the moscow metro. Most cities build their buildings of marble... moscow keeps all of its marble underground.... its beautiful... and bomb shelter safe. The metro is fun b/c its all in cerilic... (i learned how to read basic cerilic by the time i got out of russia, it was exciting) The lights flicker, there's a yellow haze, and everything tells you the trains haven't been new in decades. The doors open and shut without warning... at one point people in our group got left behind b/c they couldn't get in fast enough, but i'm skipping ahead...

The first goal was to get to Red Square... that took a while... but we got there eventually, and we saw the Kremlin and St. Basils, and Red Square, and Lennon's tomb, (at least from the outside) we wandered through st. basil... sharing a head set... never share a head set when there are multiple inches between you and the other person. Of course it was sprinkling for most of the day... I had invested in yet another umbrella just before leaving hamburg... it was a cheap umbrella, and i paid for it by slicing a large chunk of my finger off while trying to close it. Lucky for me, I'm now always prepared... for everything... I even carry a first aid kid around with me for such situations as profusely bleeding finger in a church...the Cathedral of Christ our Savior... it was.. incredible. It was full of Icons... Russians love their Icons. As far as we can tell this is the biggest difference between Russian orthodox and Catholocism. They all had their rituals, and prayers, and incense... It was actually all very touching to be a part of.

We wandered around the city for a while longer, looking for a specific area that was supposed to be really trendy to eat in. Unfortunately it started to rain, then it rained a little more, then it rained hard enough to have us flee into the first resturant we saw open. A little Italian place, with fabulous food. Poor Cathy is allergic to wheat products. People with dietary issues that travel blow my mind. I mean, my dietary constrictions are no soy and walnuts... which, admittedly, i tend to ignore... but to have real constrictions, I couldn't imagine pulling that off. But Cathy was pretty inspirational... she had done all of her homework and managed pretty well all around.

So we kept walking around, and at one point we came to a street where there were kids with AK-47s... ok, not kids, they were in uniform... but they also had dogs... I have a few theories in life... one is, don't walk down the street where there are teenagers with guns and dogs... i don't care if its their job or not. So we turned and walked up the street, and just happened to look back to see this totally soviet building behind us, sort of like a prison, which explained why it was being guarded. This led to one of my favorite life lessons... never look back in life... unless you are traveling... because the view is always different, and you might miss something awesome if you don't.

So back to red square, we checked out the main museum, which is actually cut into two museums. You really need about 6 hours to do the whole thing properly. We did the second half or Russian history. Which was great, as a lot of it was a review of things I already knew. And I loves me the russian history. Of particular note was that they had a model of a room where philosophers and revolutionaries would meet, and actually mentioned that Belinsky would come to this particular room. While I'm not actually related to the russian Belinsky, I don't care, its still my name... if you don't know who i'm talking about click here--> Vissarion Belinsky
And I got my picture taken with a cossak... heehee

Sooo... after all that we had to hall it back to the hotel because it was time to meet up with our group. It was a tad on the girl heavy side. Me, Cathy, Michelle (US), Jill (Ireland), Petty (Aussie), Ian and Sue (Aussies, married), Emma and Roland (Irish, engaged), Maija (Aussie), Leila (Aussie), and Erin (USA) who was our tourguide.

So we met, we went back into town to eat at a fabulous little chain resturant called moomoo, wandered around red square by night, then a few of us went for drinks, only to have every russian beer be out of stock. So we paid far too much for import beers that that took over an hour to get. Ah life expereience... and my first real taste of how Russians handle service. As it turned out, Cathy and I ended up being roomies, which was awesome. And all this was just day 1!!

The next day, we got up bright and early to do one of the most exciting things ever... go see an embalmbed dictator. For those keeping track... this is embalbed dictator number two for me. As someone pointed out I have very odd measurments of accomplishment in my life... and you know what i say... so what... it keeps my world interesting. There have been a total of 9 embalmbed communist dictators: Lenin, Dimitrov, Choibalsan, Stalin, Gottwald, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, Neto, Burnham, Kim Il Sung-- Of these Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (in Georgetown, Guyana), and Kim Il Sung (in North Korea), remain on display... I've seen 2 of 5, not bad. See this blog, A letter from China: the pickled dictator, for more info on embalmbed dictators. The Lenin experience was a little surreal. I mean this is someone I've learned about for years. Studied indepth. Someone who had brilliant ideas, was smart enough to believe they wouldn't come about in his time, but ambitious enough to seize opportunity when it happend to fall into his lap. He comes second only to Robespierre in my favorite revolutionaries, and easily within my top five dead people i'd like to have tea with. Walking through the tomb is creepy. Its almost completely pitch black. I ended up losing the people I was with, and wandered through alone... mainly b/c once again, there were teenagers with guns indicating i need to do so. The tomb is made of black marble, without any lights besides the ones shining upon Lenin, which you only get to after tripping through a maze of steps and armed teenagers, who don't even let you keep your hands in your pockets as you are walking through. Lenin is a lot smaller than you would imagine him... and looks waaaaay too much like Adam. If you pause to long, they start to walk towards you... and then suddenly you are outside, and wandering past the grave of "great" commies, including Stalin, and the first cosmonats. Honestly, I couldn't tell which was Stalin's grave. I hadn't learned the ceryllic well enough yet, and there wasn't anything in english. oh well... he's not one of my favorites, kinda falls into the "truly evil" category.

There was a little time to kill after seeing Lenin, so I ended up crusing the market and checking out the GUM... all designer stores... I could never afford to actually shop here. We then all met up and went to the Kremlin. It was pretty cool. Got to see where Putin lives, where the Czars were crowned and burried... etc. There was one big ugly commie building in the middle, and we got to see the treasury.

Afterwards, I decided to take on Moscow on my own. I wandered a few miles down river to Gorky Park... Which i thought was just a regular park with a few rides here and there. No... it was an amusement park. Not an expensive one, but still not a lot of fun to be in by yourself, and it wasn't really my final destination, i just sort of wanted to go in and check it out... and realized you need a whole day there... so I crossed the street to one of the places i've wanted to see since high school... the communist statue graveyard, or statue park, as its called. This place was pretty cool.... when communism fell, they took all the old statues and everything and dumped them in this park... but over the years, things had been picked up and moved around so that they were set up nicely etc. There's one part where they just stuck all the heads in one place (see pictures) overall the whole thing was really cool, and I'm very happy i made the trip out there.

I started walking back up the river and ended up on a bridge with trees and locks, where couples would come after they were married to put their locks on the trees, and then i ended up in a park full of locals just hanging out. I walked myself out of a potentially dodgy situation at one point, and saw what was clearly a mobster being driven chaufferd around. It was... an eyeopening side adventure.

So I met up with the group for dinner. As i was waiting... the most glorious of things was being sold at a stand. Granted it was warm... but i didn't care... I had walked like 9 miles, it was a Mountain Dew... the first I'd had since exams... it was glorious. We then headed into the trendy district Cathy and I had tried to get to the day before for lunch. It was pretty awesome. A pedestrian shopping area, and the resturant had fake trees growing in it, and a terrifying scarecrow. *I'm trying not to write about how awesome all the food in russia was b/c i've had complaints that i talk about food too much... but its really hard not to... the food is good.... ah well... this was then end of our time in Moscow. I didn't stay out this night b/c i was barely moving by this point....