Moscow

Moscow is .......

big. like huge. like really really really huge.
an eternal traffic jam.
expensive.
way more America/Europe/civilized-ness than the rest of Russia


There are probably other important things to say about Moscow. Mainly I can’t get over how big it is. It’s huge. Something like 14 million people. I don’t know. Highly alarming.

A brief rundown of the past week:
Left Yaroslavl on Monday morning. It was sort of a relief to go. I had just been dreading it so much that it was okay to get in the car and drive away. This ease of leaving was actually because I knew I would be returning to Yaroslavl in like a week. So yes. Then the driver decided that he was going to take a smoking break like approximately every 5 minutes. Not really. But there were lots of smoking breaks. So we were sort of way behind on arrival into Moscow. Which meant I was taken straight to the hostel/ straight to the general area of the hostel where both driver and I carried/pulled/dragged about my suitcases trying to find the mysterious hostel which we eventually did find. This has already become much too long and detailed. Arrived at hostel. Then Susanna got there. Then we went to Red Square. I like Red Square. Then we went to this hipster bar with Eddie and Sarah (from summer school) and tried not to spend all of our money. Mainly we spend all of our time trying not to spend all of our money. Mainly it always fails because Moscow (as listed above) is expensive. Moving on.

Tuesday:
Train tickets to Helsinki for Susanna and I have been purchased. We were helpfully yelled at by many different people. We were in the wrong train station, then we were not at the international ticket counter, then we were at the correct ticket counter but we incorrectly understood that there was only one line which was waiting for two different windows instead of two lines waiting separately for the two windows (there were definitely two different lines), then we were yelled at because other people had gotten tired of standing in line so they were now sitting, but they wanted to make sure we understood that we were actually behind them in line even though they were now sitting, then we were pleaded with by a woman from Belarus because she needed to change her train ticket in an emergency, then we were yelled at by sitting woman because we had let the Belarus woman cut in front of us but not told the Belarus woman that she was actually behind the sitting woman and not the man in line, then we were yelled at by the ticket woman because there are apparently no trains returning from Helsinki to Piter on the 7. I’m not sure if we were actually “yelled” at . I think in the U.S. it might count as yelling. Or at least not very friendly or polite and dismissive commands. But it’s the sort of the thing that is the standard quo in Russia. I like it. It’s just sort of openly brutal. It makes me feel like “me against the world.” So ticket buying to Helsinki was this game that began 3 weeks ago with emailing about buses, and then became attempted purchasing in Yaroslavl (for me successful) purchasing in Irkutsk for Susanna (unsuccessful), and finally culminated in successful purchasing in Moscow. It’s just a big game. If you can’t see it as a big game, you might want to kill yourself with how frustrating the whole process is. But really it’s just a huge challenge. I don’t know how I will deal with life in the U.S. when buying train tickets involves going on the internet and typing in a credit card number and an address where the tickets will be mailed to. It will be so much less climatic. I won’t be allowed to lose sleep for weeks and procrastinate ticket buying because of how scared I am of train stations and then finally go and have to bravely fight for a place in line and etc....Yeh. That got way out of control.

Other things on Tuesday:
Went to the большой театр (Bolshoi Theatr). Is it always translated to english as the Bolshoi or is it translated as the «Big Theatre» because it if is translated as the «Big Theatre», then that is lame. Then we found ridiculous shopping malls full of like 2000 rouble scarves and perfume and the sort of frivolity and excessive money that I sort of forgot about. I guess I didn't forget about it. But I liked that it doesn't really exist in Yaroslavl. Moscow malls are stately and majestic. They have escalators and heat and a general level of classiness and sophistication that doesn't exist in Yaroslavl. We also found the Masaratti and Ferraris store. That was a good success.

Wednesday:
We went to a cemetery. It was stately and majestic. Like most things in Moscow. There was also a nearby pond. It was pretty. Did more wandering about Red Square. Got lost and found the neither stately nor majestic statue of Peter on the river. It is really just alarming. I feel like our time in Moscow has been less dominated by a huge list of necessary museums and more dominated by random riding of the metro to stations which I sort of remember reading about in Lonely Planet and then sort of wandering about looking for something which might be of importance. I mean the museums are important to. But I like the people. I like that life is everywhere and you just get completely caught up in how many people there and ...I don't know where this thought is going, so I'm going to abandon it.

Thursday:
Tretyakovskaya Gallery where I was once again embarassed by my lack of knowledge of really anything about Russia. Not that I really know anything about art in America. I know the Mona Lisa is important. That has nothing to do with America. I remember walking very fast through the Louvre with Emily to find the Mona Lisa. Okay moving on. We went to Sparrow Hills and walked through the forest/park in the evening snow and it was nice. We found the huge staduim that they built for the 1980 Olympics. And this ski tower thing which I think is used for aerial ski jumping or whatever Eric Bergoust does. But I don't understand because it would sort of lauch the skier into either the river or like the roof of the Lijinki stadium building. Then we read the sign and discovered there was lessons on specific days and so that is the most ridiculolus thing ever and so we spent long amounts of time completely not understanding if it was possible for an actual normal person to pay an unspecificied amount of money and fling himself off the huge ski tower jump thing and land in some unspecificed location. So yes.

Friday:
Kremlin. There were churches and icons and a real live yolka except I guess the fact that was cut down means it wasn't «live» but still it was like a complete tree instead of just being patched together on like a steel frame. And then I tried to be the translater for this tourist who was mistakenly buying Chinese post cards. I'm not sure why they sell postcards of Chinese art in the Moscow Kremlin. But they do. And he just looked around hopelessly as the woman yelled at him saying «китайские открытки» And then in his limited english, he told me he wanted to buy the miniature cannon. And then I told the saleswoman. But she didn't have change for his 1000 roubles. Which is sort of understandable. Then we dug through his wallet and found 500 roubles. The cannon cost 150 roubles. Anything over 100 roubles can be paid for with a 500. That is my rule. However saleswoman kept yelling at us that she had no change but that she could take a credit card. Then the poor man thanked me in his sort of english and defeatedly walked away. It was all very sad.

Saturday: (today)
I just realized there are like 800 other important things we did in Moscow. But I don't feel like going back and adding them.

Side note: The host/owner of the hostel is this amazing man. Who just sort of sits around and then engages in fights with young men about the internet or computers. Actually this is like the craziest hostel ever. It is so out of control. It's also very un-understood whether actual tourists stay here or just that the hostel is full of Russians who are somehow employed by the owner/host man. I don't know. It's ridiculous. Also it is somehow afficilated with the most ridiculous mode-ish cafe ever in the history of the world. There's just lots of black and white boxy furniture and tv screens which silently show like artsy slideshows of very strange artsy pictures. It's so weird. Sometimes we go eat breakfast there. The people at the hostel have told us this is allowed. However the people at the restaurant always give us the most exasperated looks whenever we arrive. also sometimes we see the woman who is always cleaning at the restaurant emerge from this secret room in the hostel. It's so ridiculous, I don't even know what to say. So then this morning we went to the restaurant and it was covered in confetti and the server girl just gave us the most pathetic laugh ever and said that they had been busy all night and that we should come back later for breakfast. But instead we ran away and will not be coming back. There is no way anyone will understand how crazy the hostel and the restuarant are. Oh well. Also in the stairway to the restaurant there is the creepiest green faced halloween dummy man and I was scared for my life the first time I saw him. And he is still the most sketchy thing ever.

We went to a museum about Tolstoy. We went to a Gruzincki (Georgian) restaurant. There was some sort of meat item that cost 4,000 roubles. We did not order that. We went to Victory Park and saw a lot of brides walking around. There were 6 of them at one point. I never thought I would need the genetive plural to talk about the шесть невест.

Then we came back and ate dinner and drank tea. We do a lot of tea drinking these days. Mainly because whenever we enter the hostel we are asked by the owner man if we have замерзли (frozen) and instructed to drink lots of tea. But the tea bags are free. So I don't complain.

Tomorrow we are taking the train from Moscow to Yaroslavl. There is sure to be quite a welcoming feast upon our arrival. I can only imagine how excited Margarita will be to have two students who she needs to be feeding. She already asked me if Susanna is big or small. Because if Susanna was big that would mean the extra cot wouldn't be acceptable for a sleeping place and then Susanna and I would have to take over the main room/Margarita's room for sleeping and Margarita would sleep in my room. But thankfully I answered that Susanna is small so I will be allowed to sleep in my bed and Susanna will be given the cot in my room and everything will work out. I don't know what we're doing in Yaroslavl. Going to watch Loko on Monday. I hope. Taking a bus to a nearby town on Tuesday where the Kremlin is really pretty and they films lots of historical movies there. I don't know what Wednesday. Probably eating a lot of food from Margarita before we are then on our way to Piter and back to a diet which consists of Snickers bars, ice cream, pasta which is always very al dente because of the lack of proper cooking stove appliances, and alarming tomato sauce which is actually more tomato paste but we try to pretend that it was a good purchase so we eat it anyways.