Pictures
Whenever pictures are in a post, I lose most of my wit and ability to tell a coherent story around them. Mostly because I’m missing lots of pictures and to string them together requires too much thought. One day, I’ll take my camera and shoot first, before admiring cool new things. That way, when I blog about it for you, you won’t have to go. The more I travel, the more you can sit in your chair and live vicariously through me around the world.
This episode focuses on a short trip to Moscow. While its not the best city it the world, it is the most expensive thus making it pretty cool.
The Hostel I stayed at is located pretty centrally in Moscow, the 8th floor of a building on Old Arbat Street (старый Арбат). Its a tourist shopping street with the most inflated prices around.
As ususal, click on a picture for a bigger version
Along this street is a McDonald’s where people can walk up and order through the specially designed Walk-through window called MacExpress. We only ate here once, and instead chose a more Russian restaurant called Теремок (Teremok). Mostly, Теремокs are just stands on the street, but we found one in a Mall not far from the train station we arrived and departed from. Not to be left out of the iPod marketing craze, Теремок shows their pancakes with filling product just like Apple. Also, I’m ordering some Russian pancakes (Блини).
When I thought about taking pictures, I was usually underground in Moscow’s famous Metro. I took pictures of the celings, the architecture and other stuff I found neat. First is A map found at each of the metro lines showing connections. Next, the lights in Mendeleev Station. Guess who he is. The Doors are your average Metro exits/entrances, I think they look pretty classy. The last 2 are Stained Glass at a metro stop, I forget which
The Russian for Escalator is Travelator. Here is a Russian Subway Travelator.
Communism was weird, For 74 years Russia was atheist, but there are tons of churches that survived. Now that capitalism is here, they are just old buildings that don’t make much money. So lets build a McDonald’s nearby.
Speaking of food, I ate at the only good Mexican restaurant in Russia. The following are pictures of the signage, the drinks/pico de gallo, where we sat and the front room.
At the advice of our friend Alex, we went to the Sovyolevskaya Market(Совёлевский Рынок). Here there are hundreds of stalls selling techno gadgets. I was incredibly happy. There happened to be a stall selling Hookahs (Кальян) where Mandy bought a personal sized hookah with its own box. No pictures of that as of yet. The next 2 pictures are of 1) a cell phone stall and 2) an entire computer store in about 100 sq feet.
Finally, the last story for now is that of the Руководство Игрока Adventure. I looked up the Russian distributer for D&D products and their site lists an address on the north side of town. When I finally arrived it was a standard, unmarked soviet style apartment building. Whoever works for Hasbro/WotC is making easy money playing distributor from his home. Not letting that stop me, but making me mildly upset, I went to the House of Books (Дом Книги) in search of my treasure.
Once we got there, I think we found the only Russian employee who understands the words “customer service” when put together. She was very patient with my terrible Russian and even brought me over to the database computer where several unsuccessful searches were tried. After apologizing for not being able to help us we went in search of Magic cards, hoping the book I was after might be near other gaming-esque materials. Thankfully we walked right past the Magic cards and into the children’s section because I noticed the jigsaw puzzles on the top shelf. “Games!” I thought, but there wasn’t anything but jigsaw puzzles and a woman dressed kinda like a clown reading to children and making their parents buy books if the children want to hear the ending. I was crestfallen, but in my slouchedness Mandy noticed my backside was leaning up against… Exactly what I was looking for! I’m happy Mandy found it, since what she knows only looks like the second book.
Last are 2 big. The first is one of Stalin’s Skyscrapers. The second is a Panorama of Red Square. More picture posts later.
Hey Roberto
Love the pictures! I sent the link to my office - careful what you write! haha Love you and miss you - see you soon - Mom