In discussing the program and touristy visits, I haven’t actually told you anything about Moscow yet!
Fluff from poplar trees constantly flies on the wind here, and it’s everywhere. I’ve inhaled it or swallowed it at least five times. The weather is consistently in the 60s and 70s, it’s so beautiful. The city pigeons are friendly, to the point of almost walking up to your feet, and the beggars are inordinately polite.
I apparently also look Russian enough to stop for directions next to the Tretyakov… though I rarely know where I’m going, except on the metro.
The food is also very carb heavy. It’s all bread and potatoes. I had a vegetable dinner tonight, that I highly appreciated. And of course, being legal is pretty nice. (No, I haven’t tried the vodka yet.)
The Russian sense of irony is also wonderful. So far, I’ve seen a hammer & sickle ash tray, the Kremlin (with communist starts right next to Orthodox crosses), highly decorated metro stations, a concert stage right in front of the Lenin Mausoleum (where apparently Lady Gaga once performed), and a ballet in the Kremlin State Palace, and lots of hilarious English-Russian transliteration, as well as Russian-English translations. The names of metro stations are also quite amusing- names such as “Enthusiasm highway,” “Proletarskaya,” “First of May,” “Revolution Square,” “1905 Street,” and “Lenin Prospect.” These contrast with the other metro stations, named for great literary figures, of pre-Peter I nobility.
So many contradictions, and so much fun.
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