Spring is here!

Now to recall all that has happened since April 7^th… umm… I managed to slide down an entire flight of marble stairs. My bottom is still bruised… probably drinking entirely too much lately… I’ve lost so much weight, my clothes no longer fit (yey!)… if I keep drinking, I’ll gain it back…had the first taste of peanut butter since leaving America, it was a strange experience. I had forgotten how to eat it…umm… I know!

Last weekend was the first really nice weekend we’ve had. Most of the snow seemed to melt overnight. Oliver and I headed to a park near Kievskaya and sat on a bench in the sun. We stayed all day, people watching and petting dogs.

The next day I literally rolled out of bed and half crawled, half stumbled to Metro Ploshchad Revolyusii and met my co-worker, Sasha. We both looked a state as we croaked and tried to stay steady as the escalator slowly crawled to the surface. We stopped to take pictures in front of the bright pink church and stumbled towards a noodle bar for a hangover cure. Unfortunately, it was closed. So we went down the street to Subway and ordered breakfast sandwiches and the hair of the dog. Then we shuffled to the dining room filled with people who looked worse than we did. At least Sasha and I had managed to shower and put on fresh clothes, these people were still in their tattered clubbing clothes.

Not too bad for such a hangover!

Sandwiches are not my hangover food, so Sasha ate my food while I nursed the beer. We then stumbled out of the shop and started towards Red Square, but we were too busy dwelling on our upset tummies and aching heads and took a wrong turn (in fact, we shouldn't have taken a turn at all). So we arrived at the Kremlin a bit later than expected.

By that time we were feeling a bit more human and Sasha managed to get our tickets for 80% off. Thank goodness for sneaky Russian speakers. However, he failed a bit when the ticket man asked where our child was and he said “oh he’s with grandma, you know how ten year olds throw temper tantrums.” But he let us pass any way.  I spent the walk up to the Kremlin musing how old I must look and what a spoiled child I have.

We hopped around taking pictures of all the cannons and got shooed away by some nice men with guns. For some reason we weren't allowed to see everything the map told us we could see and we were restricted to the churches only. Thank goodness we didn't pay the $25 to get in, it was defiantly only worth the $5 we spent.

My favorite church inside the Kremlin (and the first one we went into)

The churches were very nice, very beautiful, but you lose your excitement after the fourth church. They are all Byzantine style, with beautiful murals everywhere. Most of the churches were built in the 14^th and 15^th centuries and many of the paintings and relics from Ivan the Terrible had survived.

Finally our stomachs roused us to find food and we attempted the noodle place again. It was open! It is a little dive literally situated on a staircase. You order your food at the bottom of the stairs and walk up to find a table on one of the landings or a beanbag chair on a stair. We had the place to ourselves to enjoy our delicious soba noodles and more beer (the first one didn’t really cure us well). Unfortunately, soba isn’t my hangover food either. So, we rushed out into the “fresh” air and walked around the center.

We spotted the Soviet Diner, and I was quite curious what a Soviet diner looked like, so we popped in. It is remarkably like an American diner; only the long tables that filled the place only had one chair each.  It wasn’t Soviet sparseness, but the fact that they had just opened and hadn’t received all of the chairs yet.  Classic Russian movie stars and newspapers lined the walls. The menu was entirely Russian, with some burger options. I ordered an apple pie and a cream soda. The pie was really a strange pastry that reminded me of sweet pizza dough, filled with a couple of apple chunks.  Sasha ordered Navy Macaroni (think goulash with spaghetti noodles). It was ok. Russian food really has no flavor.

After the diner, I finally felt normal. So we walked along the Moskva River. About an hour after eating at the Soviet Diner, we stopped for food again, this time ordering some sushi. It was the best sushi I’ve had in Moscow. Thank goodness it was, because when the bill came, we nearly had a heart attack. Those helpful waiters decided to double our order since we were sharing (I was thinking it looked big), so we didn’t save any money by sharing food. Never trust a place in Moscow with an English menu!

We wallowed in our loss of money and finished our journey at Gorkey Park. It looks much better when it isn’t flooding, and I hear it looks even more beautiful when the grass actually grows out of the mud.

The week went by with nothing too exciting happening. The normal crap. Friday finally rolled around and we were meant to have a going away party for Sasha. However, his cousin rolled into town and started him on a traditional Russian binge and Sasha couldn’t even say his own name, let alone make it to Mintino for the party. Everyone managed to get over their hangovers enough to meet at Kolomenskoye Park on Saturday. We sat next to the river until food roused us (seems like food is the only thing that gets us moving on sunny days). Then we found a shashlik place and devoured quite a bit of meat and beer. I think Sasha had a great send-off (he probably didn’t think so on the way to the airport this morning).

 

Church at Kolmenskoye Park

On to the Border Lands

Ukrainian Famine Museum

The week before Kiev was a nightmare.  I had received very some forceful and unwanted attention from a client’s father who could not take “no” for an answer. Thankfully my bosses did not argue about it and removed me from the situation. But because I lost those teaching hours, I got extra kindergarten classes added on. Also, I had to do a trial lesson with children ages one and a half to two. It was not a success and once again I had to go through the whole spiel of how I had told the company during interviews that I refused to teach children that young because I am not qualified or comfortable teaching them. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record.

Finally, Friday evening came and I met my co-worker at Kievskaya to drink a few beers and prepare for the train ride. We departed from Kievskaya rail station (you may have seen it on “The Bourne Supremacy”) around 8:30 at night. We had bunks across from each other, so we could easily pass the time away comparing travel stories.  We rolled out our mattresses and blankets around midnight and went to sleep.

We were awoken by Russian guards sometime in the early morning to search our bags and check our passports—apparently something had spooked security, but the guards were quite nice about it. They cleared us for exit. An hour or so later, we reached the Ukrainian crossing where we were quickly cleared for entry. All of this was done without us having to leave our beds.

We reached Kiev around seven in the morning. Poor Kiev was hit with a very bad snowstorm and had more snow than it knew what to do with. It had no budget left to clear the snow and no immigrants to do it for slave wages. I had been assured that the weekend would be warm so down coats and snow boots were not necessary. By the time we reached my co-worker’s friend’s flat, we were soaked and exhausted from walking through feet of snow. My head hurt from taking a nice pile of snow that fell from a roof. I can’t win.

My co-worker and I got washed up and then braved the snow once more. My co-worker took me on a whirl-wind tour of the historic sites near my hostel and saw me fed and safely deposited at my hostel before going off to visit his friends. I met up with Kieran and Katy for a trip to the Lavra (caves) and Ukrainian Famine Museum.

Holodomor, or the Ukrainian Famine took place in the 30s. It wasn't a natural famine, brought about by bad weather. Ukraine was a major breadbasket for the USSR. This was the time of forced collectivization where all of the grain produced would be collected by authorities and evenly rationed out or sold for profit. The Ukrainian people began to go hungry. Not getting the rations they felt the deserved, Ukrainians quit growing grain as protest and the USSR let them starve. Millions of people died. The museum itself contained an altar, some farming equipment, and thick death notices from each province of Ukraine. 

We left the museum and went to the Lavra. Part of the church was built in the 11^th century and the catacombs date back to that as well. The three of us happily wandered through the snow and ice looking at the beautiful buildings. Then we grudgingly braved the icy descent down to the cave entrance. Somehow we all made it without falling, though there were several close calls.

The caves were nice and warm, keeping a steady temperature throughout the year that allows the corpses to become mummified and preserved. These corpses are covered with velvet so you cannot see them. We took a wrong turn—going with the pilgrims to the various underground chapels instead of the shorter tourist passage. This was very interesting, but extremely crowded with hundreds of people with genuflecting and kissing the coffins. We all had open flames too. I was waiting for the cave to go up in an explosion of burnt goose feathers and singed fur.

We did not combust, thankfully, and arrived back into the freezing air. We decided to meet my co-worker and his friends for some dinner. The restaurant was on the banks of the Dnieper River in a quaint shed. It is not just any restaurant, but a cat refuge. So cats jump into your lap and distract you with their cuteness while they try to sneak your dinner from your plate. I enjoyed Ukrainian beer, lamb shashlik, moonshine shots, and sala (bacon fat used as a chaser for moonshine) for a whopping ten dollars. Thank goodness I was kept busy by the cats and two interesting Ukrainian men, or I would have enjoyed the moonshine a bit too much.

I left early with Katy and Kieran to meet a friend of Kieran’s brother. He gave us a night tour of Kiev. We took the funicular up the hill to St. Michael’s Church and then walked (or slid) down St. Andrew’s Descent (a very, very steep hill). Unfortunately, I was just too cold to stand anymore sights and the lamb proved to be too rich. I left them and headed back to my hostel on Kreschatik street.

Kreschatik was busy despite the cold. Being the city center, couples and friends were out for dinner and clubs. I wandered up and down the street trying to get my stomach to relax. I finally gave up and went to the hostel. The hostel was off the main street, through an arch and in an unlit alcove. I was not so much worried about being jumped, but of the falling snow and ice off the roof onto the narrow path. I made it into the run-down tenement building and up the crumbling stairs, past the people sleeping on the stairs.

That’s the thing about Eastern European apartments. Looks do not matter, location matters. So the apparent buildings can be terrible—elevators don’t work, stairs are falling in, doors don’t lock, mailboxes are ripped from the walls and homeless people sleep in the halls. But as soon as you walk through the door into the apartment, the apartment is breathtaking. High ceilings, beautiful floors, new paint jobs, etc. This was the case with the hostel. The outside reminded you of Fagin’s humble abode, but inside you’ve stepped into a wonderful, new hostel.

I woke up (and everyone else too) early by falling off of the top bunk.  Since, I was down, I decided to just get dressed and finish up the site seeing. I went back to the cathedrals again. It was Easter Sunday in the West and I was going to challenge a fear. I decided to climb St. Sophia’s bell tower. The first tier was easy and I energetically started for the second tier.  I climbed and I climbed and I climbed. Then I met someone on the narrow, slippery stairs and it occurred to me that I’d have to get down after I made it up.  I looked up—I was still a long way down and yet, when I looked down, I was a long way up.  If I went up, I might not make it down until someone took pity on me and brought the nice men with guns to drag me down the stairs—and they wouldn’t be nice after climbing all those stairs. So I swallowed my pride and went back down the stairs.

I instead spent my time inside St. Sophia’s church. The church was built in the 11^th century and added onto in the 18^th C. It is quite impressive with the mix of 11^th C to 18^th C murals and frescos. I must have looked like an owl wandering the corridors gazing up and down and all around. When I looked at my watch, I had killed three hours wandering around inside the church. I left and hurriedly finished the tour before finishing my walking tour of historic Kiev.

I met my co-worker at McFoxy’s (Ukrainian fast food chain) near the train station.  We got on the train at 6:30. This time we couldn’t sit next to each other and we both had the top bunk. I barely slept, afraid I’d fall off the bed again. We arrived in Moscow at 9:00 to more snow. I hurried back to the apartment and prepared for my lessons.

Moscow Spring (worse than Seoul Spring could ever be)

Moscow Spring is a teenage girl! Three days fairly decent weather, and then many days of snow and freaking cold! Yesterday was beautiful! It was cold, but the sun was shining. Today, grey, snowing, windy, and freezing! I’m not so white any more, but wind burned pink.

So the week in review:
I had to eat in front of the students at the kindergarten. Monkey see, monkey do. The children ate whatever I ate. So when the cook put a large plate of boiled liver, mashed potatoes, and beets in front of me, everyone cringed. We all ate the beets and the mashed potatoes first. There was no way I was touching that liver. That is, until the teacher scolded me because none of the students were eating their liver either. So, down the hatch went the liver. I thought for sure I was going to lose my lunch on the way to the metro. 

I had some time to kill, and an upset stomach, so I stopped at Metro Arbatskaya. I had no idea what was there and just decided to see. I got out of the metro and followed the mass of people down the street, across some ice, and onto an amazingly beautiful Neo-Classical cobbled street. There were tourist shops, coffee shops, restaurants, and a torture museum housed in the mint green, candy pink, and light blue buildings. 

Despite the freezing cold temperatures, artists were on the car-less street selling amazing works of art and book sellers had heaps of used books for sale. I grabbed a coffee and wandered up and down the street enjoying the atmosphere, and truthfully spent way too much time petting and admiring the really old books.

Wednesday, a coworker I never see called me out of the blue and said “You need a visa run and I want to go to Kiev, let’s go!” so we met up and bought our train tickets to Kiev. I am really excited for this trip because this guy lived in Kiev for two years and knows it inside and out. 

After buying tickets, I hurried up to my ten-year old student. I waited until the end of the lesson to give him his birthday present of Pringles and Mars Bars. He was so excited that he ran out to tell his dad. His dad ran in with tears in his eyes, spouting a German/Russian mix and kissed me on the lips. He was so grateful that I had remembered his son’s birthday. 

Thursday I had a nightmare lesson with my kindergarten class. I remembered why I don’t like teaching the little ones. After my client at Gorky 2, the driver took me to the bus stop to catch the marshrutka . Thankfully he stuck around to make sure I got on the bus, because just as we got there, traffic stopped for forty five minutes while we waited for the president to go by. Despite having to wait to put me on the bus, the driver was quite cheerful (showing his silver teeth) and we attempted to chat about various things and rocked out to ABBA. He then put me on the marshrutka and waved to me as the bus went by.


After the drama class on Friday, I met my co-workers at a Chinese restaurant to celebrate my manager’s birthday. We wound up staying quite late and headed back to my manger’s apartment to continue the festivities. After one co-worker started to cry and another co-worker went insane, I made the executive decision it was time to go home. We took a cab back to our apartment. However, the driver got lost and I had to help guide him via metro stops. I am lucky to have a sense of direction in this city. 

Today we got up and headed to the WWII Museum. It was interesting to see yet another perspective. The first thing you see when you walk out of the metro is the Victory Arch to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon. Then you see a large empty square. At the top of the square is the Victory Monument for WWII, the eternal flame (a great place to get wedding photos, apparently), and the museum. 

Once you get into the actual museum there a long hall of weighty tomes. These books contain the names of all the USSR soldiers who died in the four years they were in the war. At the end of the hall is a large statue of a woman holding the body of a dead man. This is lit up by bronze chains with crystal tear drops-each drop represents a life lost. There are millions (estimated totally death from WWII for all of Soviet Union is between 26-27 million).

The dioramas of various battles and sieges were amazing and heart wrenching—especially the siege of Leningrad which lasted 900 days. Of course those years had really long, cold winters (-30 degrees C) and people were reduced to eating frozen dirt to stay alive—among other things.

On the second floor is the Hall of Victory. Here you begin to cheer up a bit, until you go around the bend and see the Holocaust exhibit. My mood did not cheer as I visited the art gallery. Here you see paintings of ghosts and sad corpse-like people from the war era at the opposite wing of the victorious portraits of leaders and generals. But at the end of all of this is a large painting depicting The Idiot bound and chained and Don Quixote being held by a masked crowd and forced to look on as young men burn books in a mass bonfire. Malraux would have been intrigued.

Heat Wave

Bye bye winter...

 Attended Maslenitsa yesterday. It was a beautiful 2 degrees C, so I brought out my spring coat. The warm temperature and the slight bit of rain we had melted half of the snow bank instantly.  Puddle jumping was no longer an option, you just had to take a breath and jump in. By the time I reached the metro, my feet were soaked. Luckily they had a chance to warm and dry before jumping yet again, into the stream that once was the sidewalk. It was hard to enjoy the festival at Gorky Park with soaking wet shoes and dropping temperatures.

However, it was fun to carry orange balloons around pointing to all the people wearing fox heads. Also, many Russians do celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but it appears to be some sort of green themed Ren Fair. So many kilts and medieval gowns, plus elven ears and capes. Lots of tiny, tiny, tiny green top hats.

I ate some blini and drank some traditional honey beer, tasted a little like mead. We then wandered around the various games, stilts walkers, donkeys and ponies. We watched as a traditional Russian music group played Rammstein, but the only words they knew was “Du Hast.” So I really do not know what exactly I have.  But you can get a feel for what it sounded like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECfmyddwto8

We wandered above the most best ice rink I have ever seen. Too bad it was closed. They had turned the park pathways into an ice rink, so certain coffee shops and restaurants could only be accessed from the ice rink. You could just skate down the avenue. I wanted to go skating.

I eventually got too frozen to enjoy festivities anymore, so we waded our way past a giant Lenin statue to a Mexican restaurant. The food was pretty expensive. Chicken posole was $15 for a bowl of chicken and cabbage in tomato broth. But I was cold and hungry, so I ordered vegetarian nachos (cheapest, most Carmen-friendly thing on the menu), but they were out of vegetarian nachos. So I ordered and split beef nachos with Oliver. I really do not understand what they were out of. There were chips, cheese, beef, onions, corn, tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and jalapenos (yes, I know I am going to die after eating it).  So why they couldn’t make a veggy nacho? I have no idea. I then washed it down with a $10 beer that tasted like celery. I will stick to making my own Mexican food at home, thank you (however I only seem to make Indian or bibimbap these days).

Moscow Spring

I then went home. My feet had just begun to dry out when I exited the metro to find all the paths to my apartment flooded with ankle-deep ice water. I had no choice but to wade my way home. I was really happy to ring my socks out and warm my feet in a hot water bath.

Today it is snowing, again. I am running low on food, but do not want to go to the store. Wonder how long I can make two pieces of cheese, two eggs, a banana, and two boxes of chocolates last? 

Happy Maslenitsa!

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Well, Spring is still trying to fight her way through the snow. It seems that Winter isn’t quite ready to back down.  We had maybe three cold, but wonderfully sunny days and now, four days of thick, wet snow.  My snow boots have been walked in so much that the seams are wearing down—now my feet get damp. Thank goodness, they are able to mostly dry out while I’m teaching. Nannies are once again helping me take off my layers and put on my layers—making sure my scarf is tied just right and my hood is on. I really do appreciate it, especially when they greet me at the door with a cup of tea and some biscuits.

Thursday was a particularly snowy day. I was feeling ill and had to get up early to teach at a kindergarten. I stumbled through the snow to the metro. A bear was coming up the metro stairs—scared the bejesus out of me—not to mention, I was really confused as to why a bear was walking up stairs on two legs. Turns out it was just a very tall, large woman in a fur coat with a fur hood—damn those long-haired fur hoods! They are better than the double tailed coon-skin caps that some men like to wear here.

I was really disappointed when I found out I had to teach kindergarten, but I will admit, it is kind of fun. This kindergarten is not like the others I have seen in Moscow. This one is less institutional. I love walking through the mural forest halls to the clearing (intersection of two halls) where the dwarves’ house is and up the stairs to the fairy tale tree with the mermaid tree topper. Also, these kindergartens have awesome play houses—like the kind you see in Russian illustrations. Any way, we had lots of fun singing and dancing and learning about animals and I got a group hug afterwards.

After the school fed me some delicious blini (crepes), I put on my layers and dodged children on skis. The snow was coming down harder. I made it back to the metro, past the woman beggar who had been sitting out in the snow for these two hours and past the beautiful soaking, wet Burnese Mountain Dog who had smartly gone into the metro to get out of the snow. This got me thinking about the fact that humans will allow a dog to block half of the metro entrance but are annoyed when a fellow human takes up half that space. And I am just as bad, because while I felt sorry for the woman, I actually stopped and wanted to help the dog.

After kindergarten I headed out to Gorki-2, a wealthy suburb of Moscow. Just as I got off the bus, traffic halted. The president was heading somewhere and traffic was stopped. After that, the traffic was so jammed that it crawled. I was waiting outside for 45 minutes in the snow, waiting for the driver to be able to come pick me up. We then took some country roads, but unfortunately, so did everyone else, and we were waiting for another 45 minutes. When I arrived to the client’s home the nanny brought me directly into the kitchen for some soup and tea. Both the Pomeranian and the Maine Coon Cat (google it) scolded me for not telling them hello first. I need to get a picture of them together—the cat is twice the size of the Pom.

Last night headed out for a few games of pool. Nice to get out to a bar for a change and even more luxurious to take a cab home! Now I am waiting for people to wake up so we can go to a park, freeze our butts off, and eat blini for the big crepe and butter festival called Maslenitsa! I will freeze for blini. Of course, I could just make it, but I’m working very hard to break this strange view of women my male coworkers seem to have.

This brings me to last week and International Women’s Day. It is a huge deal in Russia. For three days men and women were walking around with huge plants and flower arrangements and giant boxes of chocolates. I was one of those women! My students gave me chocolates, flowers, chocolates, champagne, chocolates, cake, chocolates, mascara, and did I mention, chocolate. Anyway, long story short, I found out how some of coworkers feel about women (these men are all raised in Canada and America). It wasn’t very nice what they had to say, so I won’t repeat it. But they were completely shocked when I said I don’t like masses of children who aren’t potty trained—apparently, as a woman I am genetically programed to desire and love cleaning up after masses of poopy children. Also, as a woman I am genetically programmed to want to get married and spawn masses of poopy children. And apparently, as a woman, I am genetically programmed to desire each one of my co-workers as a potential mate. Basically they told me I fail as a woman--all I can say is if that is what being a woman is, THANK GOD I fail!

Oh, on my wanderings I discovered a really run-down, but cool building (really only cool because I haven't seen many like it in Moscow). I didn't have my camera, so I didn't take a picture, but I typed in the address and apparently, it is by a kind of famous Russian architect/engineer (designed mainly prisons and hospitals). 

Mock Spring

Those of you who are from winter country can understand the frustrations of mock spring. Mock spring is that evil time in winter where the sun shines all day, the days begin to warm, the snow begins to melt, the birds magically appear, and the trees start budding. Everyone is happy and brings out their spring coats and shoes. And four days later, there is a fresh blanket of snow, the wind is biting, the sun disappears, and you are freezing. This is what I am experiencing in Moscow.  We had nearly a week of nice, warm, sunny weather and then, bam, blizzards and black ice again. Depression ensues.

I lived that sunny week to the fullest. Any free time I sat, bundled up on a park bench (thirty degrees never felt so warm). I had been reading Oliver Twist and had to fight many personal battles to pull myself away from sun and book to teach. I also visited a few parks, wandering around in aspen groves dodging one horse open sleighs. A few of us even wandered through a street market, reminding me of living in Asia. Only the Russians will literally chase you through the market trying to get you to buy something.

My teaching schedule has changed, yet again. I no longer have the clients across the city at nine in the morning. They didn’t like me because I didn’t speak enough Russian. I danced for joy. Instead I got two more clients closer to home. The only downside of this is that I am walking under overpasses and bridges at nine o’clock at night with very little lighting—and in this weather, not many sane people are out that late under bridges.

I finally, finally, finally, got up the energy to go out on the town on a Friday night. But of course, no one else had the energy. So after wandering under bridges like a troll, I traveled an hour back across the city to a co-worker’s house. By the time I arrived my co-workers were all pretty far gone. It was attempting to blizzard and they had given me the wrong directions to the apartment (in their defense, I also came out at the wrong part of the metro). Luckily, my roommate found me. He had been on his way to the metro to pick me up and had gotten lost too. Somehow we found our way back to the apartment, but not before getting in a random snowball fight with our crazy Ukrainian co-worker. There were civilian casualties and we had to outrun an angry man… I blame the intoxicated members of our group, because I have an amazing arm and would never through a wild ball (ahem cough cough).

Last night my roommate and I headed towards the center again, for a sushi night, slash Carmen-thinks- she-needs-MORE-jewelry shopping. Of course I brought impractical jewelry instead one of those necklaces with a blue eye to ward off the evil eyes that old ladies keep sending me when I am so engrossed in my book that I don’t notice them wanting my seat on the metro.

The Exploration Continues

Back to the Red Square

This last week I had two more clients added to my schedule, so now I must get up at 6:30 AM on Wednesdays and Fridays to make it across the city to the clients by 9:00 AM. I was pretty upset about this at first because on Tuesdays I don’t even get home until 10 PM and my roommates have Fridays off so Thursday nights are stay home and drink night. But once I discovered that my client lives three apartment blocks down from me and has to make that commute every day and work until 7 PM, I quit my whining.

Because of these new clients, I have four hours to kill. This is not quite enough time to go all the way home and do anything, so I have been picking metro stops and exploring them. I managed to find a couple of decent malls with Gap, H & M, a tiny Uniqlo, and TopShop. All are highly overpriced, but the sales make them somewhat affordable. I also found a Starbucks and am strangely excited for this discovery. I even approached a man on the street to find out where he had found Starbucks. Of course he didn’t understand me and thought I was crazy and ran away. I don’t blame him, really. But I managed to find it on my own.

I took Oliver to the Red Square yesterday. We took a few pictures and then, having realized we hadn’t eaten at all, went on a mad food hunt. Prices are crazy expensive near the Red Square, so we went back to that mall where I accosted the Starbucks customer. I ordered us some “Gamburger” and “Kartofel Free” and a drink for a decent price of 175 rubles (almost $6).

I then met up with Katy and Kieran for a trip to the Wine Factory. It is probably one of my favorite spots in Moscow so far. It is an old red brick wine factory turned art compound. It is full of artsy cafes, tiny little shops selling jewelry, handmade passport covers, awesome journals made from copies of medical journals, school books, and magazines.  There are many art galleries to get lost in and a random Mustang Jeans store.  There is also an art supply store down where the wine barrels were stored. I think that it would make a better café, to have the chairs and tables placed under the low arches…but that is a bit too mainstream perhaps.