The first weekend

We've finally made it to our first weekend, and it's already almost over! As one friend here said, "time in Moscow goes fast, I just woke up and the day is already done." Perhaps. Or maybe it's because we spent our entire Saturday between IKEA, buying a few necessities, and unpacking all our crap which finally arrived. I am happy to say that I've finished that massive task already and as soon as I've got things in order I'll post a few more pictures of a hopefully more homey and comfortable-looking flat. Oh, and somewhere in there I nearly flooded our apartment because, while doing a load of laundry, the hose got lose and dumped several gallons of water all over the floor. That was a delight to clean up. I felt like a Katrina survivor.

Cultural note for Saturday: after paying for our things, we stopped near the IKEA food section to have some hotdogs. Yeah, I know, we're in Russia and we're eating hotdogs. Anyways, I noticed that roughly 50% of the people we're chowing down on ice cream. It's about 3 degrees outside (35Fish) and their enjoying ice cream!? I see it on the street too. Normally, I expect ice cream stands to go on hiatus in the cold months, but I have the feeling business is pretty steady year round here. Pure craziness. Screw ice cream, pass me some hot cocoa or brandy for heaven's sake!

Today (Sunday) we actually attempted to do something cultural so we headed down to the Kremlin. Except that we didn't really get into it because 350 roubles ($15) a ticket seemed like too much to pay to walk around in 3 degree weather and a strong wind looking at the outside of buildings because there is a separate admission price for each church/palace. We'll go, I've been promised, just when it's a little nicer (and perhaps when we're feeling a bit richer). Instead we had fast-food Russian-style. I had a crepe thing with cabbage, Petr had one with mushrooms and sour cream, and then he had some buckwheat meal and chicken and we share a bowl of borsch. All in all it was quite good. The borsch especially. I also like this buckwheat meal called Kasha (каша) which is kind of like couscous or pilaf only with buckwheat. We also tried kvas (квас) which is a fermented drink made with bread and sometimes they add fruit or honey. It sounds nasty but it taste kinda like Coke, with some indescribable extra flavor. Not bad at all.

Then we went to the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer. The original was built in 1883, but Stalin blew it up in 1931 and built a pool there instead.  They rebuilt it in the 1990s at a cost of over $200 million. It's a really gorgeous building inside and out and like all Orthodox churches, full of gold and sumptuous color. Men must take off their hats and women cover their heads upon entering. It is always interesting to watch Orthodox believers. They bow and cross themselves ALL the time: when walking in front of the iconostasis, in front of images of saints (which are everywhere) and they have this custom of going up to the icons, crossing themselves, and then kissing the glass cover, and crossing themselves again. I saw one old babushka do this three times in front of a single icon, and it looked like she was making the rounds to all the icons (of which there were, say, 20). That's a lot of kissing, crossing and bowing! Many buy little candles which are place in front of the icon and then light it there before commencing the kissing business. In the corners they sell books, icons and other religious paraphernalia which looks touristy but it seems that mostly the locals are buying things. Petr says that we'll attend a service sometime and then we'll really see something interesting. Oh boy...look forward to that post.

We also tried the metro today. It's going to take me some time to figure it out because the signs are only in Cyrillic and they're not presented in a chart-format but simply a list of stations on each side of the platform. You really have to read to know where to go! The closest metro to us is Mayakovskaya (маяковская) and it's quite stately, in a Socialist-Realist sort of way. The ceiling has mosaics with strong Soviet men and women diving and farming and planes flying over bountiful crops. Moscow's metro is one of the most beautiful in the world because it was conceived as the "people's palace" and many of the stations are quite opulent. I will try to take some pictures as I explore more. The funniest part of the metro experience is the babushka who sits in a small glass box at the bottom of the escalators. I don't know exactly what the job description is, but I've seen some sleeping, or texting. Cushy job, huh?

I'm going to go vacuum.