3-11-07

3-11-07

I have returned from Moscow. I’m pretty tired after the train ride and then napping this morning, but there are things to be done. Namely, write and post this, post some pictures, send some emails, and meet Becky and Hillary at the supermarket to do some pre-trip shopping. But it’s not really fair to Moscow to gloss over my trip, so I’ll do my best to get everything down.

Wednesday night, we all met at Moscow Station at 9:30 and hung out til about 10:30 when we boarded our train. I was in a cabin with Ruby, Lael, and Michelle. The train got going and our cabin quickly became the place to be. Not in any kind of loud, boisterous way, just simply that we had about 8 people in there at any given time, having random and entertaining conversations. It was great; we had a really great time. Only downside was that we didn’t get in “bed” til 3:30ish. Not much of a bed, of course, as it’s just a padded bench. I was also grossed out by the blanket, so I used my coat as a blanket and froze the whole night.

Luckily, that wasn’t too long to be cold, as we woke up at 6 to prepare for getting into Moscow at 6:30. We were like zombies, it was pretty bad. We had all slept in our clothes and felt disgusting. Once we got off of the train, we boarded a bus that took us to the Hotel Cosmos. It’s a hotel outside of the center of the city with a, surprise, space theme. The theme’s pretty loose, but it’s because it’s right across the street from the Cosmonaut Museum and Cosmonaut Monument. The hotel also had a large statue of Charles DeGaulle in front of it, simply because the architect who designed it was French and French people used to stay there.

The hotel itself was quite large, 25 stories and shaped like a gentle arch. Hannah and I roomed together and within the first minute discovered the window opened and that kopeks look like they’re floating when you drop them out of the window (Onto a roof, no one was there). We could also see Becky and Hillary, who were farther along the arch. Whoa, I just realized I’m totally getting ahead of myself—we didn’t check into the hotel until after our excursion.

So the hotel doesn’t start check-in til 7, and since we arrived before then we couldn’t check in. So we just took advantage of the hotel’s large breakfast buffet and all laughed way too hard because everyone was slaphappy. After breakfast, we turned our passports into the front desk and wrote our room numbers on our bags so that they’d get sent up. We then got on a bus and began our city tour.

First thing we all noticed right away—Moscow’s BIG. It actually feels like a city. In St. Petersburg, for the most part, everything is close together because of geography and the way the city center was planned in the 18th century. Moscow’s got wide streets and tall buildings of the type you just can’t find in St. Petersburg. Of course, we have large Stalinist apartment buildings, but they’re not in the city center. In the end, this SAT-style analogy best describes the difference: LA is to San Francisco as Moscow is to St. Petersburg.

Our first stop was Red Square. Here’s my chance to put on my nerd cap and explain that, originally, the name of the square was meant to be “Beautiful Square” but that use of the adjective shifted to only mean Red. I’m sure the Communists loved it, too. We all snapped pictures of St. Basil’s, the Kremlin Walls, and Lenin’s Mausoleum. We also went into Éìå, the large store on the square.

Then we went to the Church of the Assumption, a large and pretty church. It was only recently reconstructed, after having been destroyed during the Soviet era. There was a footbridge there that also provided nice views of the Kremlin. Then we went to a park where we had a nice view of a monastery. At this point of the tour, I was barely awake, so I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I can't remember the name. From looking at my map 've got it narrowed down to one of two—Novospassky or Novodevichy. I'll figure it out. The lastly, we went up into the hills to see the terrifying building that is åÉì, the state university of Moscow. We had a nice view over the expanse of the city, giving us a chance to see just how gigantic it really is.

Then we returned to the hotel and had free time the rest of the day. A couple of us went to the grocery store across the street and bought food for lunch there. We had a little picnic in Hannah’s and my room and watched BBC World. Our original plan had been to go to the Pushkin Art Museum that afternoon, but we were all really pooped. Instead, looking out the window we could see some interesting-looking buildings and a really big Ferris wheel. So we decided to check those out instead.

Hannah, Becky, Hillary, Kate, Lael, Mattison, and I wandered over to a large Soviet triumphal-looking arch and entered what, if memory serves me correctly, was called BBK, but I have no idea what that stood for. Essentially, it’s kind of like a large market. 20 or so large pavilions where businesses or individuals can rent space to sell their wares. The area itself is like it’s some kind of World’s Fair grounds. Lots of large, imposing buildings and fountains and the like. There was also an Aeroflot plane and a rocket, too. We had a good time just wandering and not exercising our brains. Katie joined us at the rocket, and we went to the Ferris wheel.

It was a huge Ferris wheel, but it had really neat views of the city at sunset. For dinner, we went to McDonald’s because it was close and almost all of us got McFlurries and McNuggets for dinner, because we’re cool like that. We were all so tired that once one person suggested something, it was the only thing we could think of. That night, we all relaxed in Hillary and Becky’s room, watching Biathlon on EuroSport, and eventually watching two episodes of Lost that Katie had downloaded.

The next day everyone was dragging so we were a little late setting out to the Kremlin by way of the legendary Moscow Metro. Struck me as very similar to the St. Petersburg Metro, just more palatial. At the Kremlin, we went into all of the churches, saw the giant cannon and giant bell, and went to the Armory Museum. The Armory Museum has cool things like ambassadorial gifts to the tsars, Catherine the Great’s coronation gown, the crown of Monomakh, imperial carriages, and the thrones of the tsars.

Then we had a free afternoon, so we went to the Pushkin Museum. It has 20th Century foreign art. It was really, really amazing. Found a Van Gogh I had never seen before but really, really like. It was also a fairly easy museum to do, you know you’re seeing everything and you don’t get lost or confused (I’m looking at you, Ermitage). After the Pushkin, we wandered down to a Metro stop, but on the way stopped to get ice cream. We’ve all discovered the joys of ice cream in cold weather. We all ate our ice cream in front of a big statue with Engels and watched something amazing. We had noticed a stray dog near the ice cream booth, and watched a lady feed him a hot dog. This scruffy little guy then went over to one of the crosswalks and essentially began to act as a crossing guard. He would stand next to the people waiting to cross, and when the light changed he would go out in the middle of the street and wait until the last person was in the street and follow them to the sidewalk. If cars got too close to the people waiting to cross, he would chase after them and bark. It was great and I think Becky and Kate took videos of it on their cameras.

Then Kate and Lael went to go to the circus. It didn’t really hold much appeal for me, so Hannah, Hillary, Becky and I made our own interesting plan. Mattison split off because he was leaving Saturday afternoon and wanted to see the Tretyakov before he left. So we just got on the Metro, the brown line, the one that’s a ring around the city, and just rode it. We got off at every stop and took pictures of things like the mosaics and decorations. It was freeing because you can’t take pictures in the St. Petersburg Metro.

Then we wandered the Old Arbat, a pedestrian street. At this point it was dark and it set a nice mood. There were some street musicians and at first Hannah and I thought they were singing, “I love Lucy! I love Lucy!” But it turned out they were singing, “I love people! I love people!’ It would’ve been much better if it were Lucy. Mattison met up with us and the 5 of us looked for a place to eat. Mainly just to find a place to get off of our feet. We stopped outside of a pub called Plotnikov’s Pub and were looking at the menu outside when an old British gentleman appeared behind us and said, “Go in! Go in! It’s the best pub in the city! Try the Kilkenny!” Looking at the menu, it really wasn’t that bad price-wise. So we went in and tried the Kilkenny and had really good food but it was probably more than we should have spent. It’s okay; everyone’s allowed a splurge.

After dinner, we slowly made our way to Red Square, which is absolutely beautiful at night. Then we got back to the hotel and watched speed skating until we fell asleep. Saturday we went to a large souvenir fair, and I managed to pick things up for three people. I really should’ve gotten a fourth, but it’s not exactly like I’ll be unable to get it here. At the very least, wandering around there confirmed what I want to get everyone—well, except for two people. They’re causing problems. After the souvenir fair, we went to the new Tretyakov and saw Russian 20th century art. There were hits and misses, but I saw a couple of things I really liked.

Then we went back to the hotel and packed up. Hannah, Kate, Lael, and Rachel Eve left for Riga, and Becky, Hillary, Katie and I got on the train back to St. Pete. Katie was in another wagon, and the three of us were accompanied by an Asian girl studying at a different university in St. Pete. We were all pretty tired, but we encountered a problem. I shut the door to go to bed, but then Hillary had to get out, but we couldn’t open the door. The four of us banged on the door until our neighbor came and opened it, and we showed him how you couldn’t open it from the inside. He went and got the train employee in our car. This guy was somehow magically able to open it when none of us could. We just set the other lock that prevents the door from being opened more than 3 inches and didn’t shut the door all of the way.

Then we got in this morning and had planned to go to McDonald’s for breakfast but it was closed, so we went to Kofe Haus. Then Hillary and I went to Café Max for an hour of internet time (I wanted to give Marina a chance to sleep in). I got back here about 8:30, and slept til 11. I just ate breakfast at about 12:15, so I won’t need lunch. I’m going to try to get a hold of Hillary and Becky so we can get our shopping done. We leave for Helsinki tomorrow morning at 8. I’m going to do my best to write things down that I want to post about over the next week, but we’ll see how that goes.