After our little store adventure, we headed back to the dorms to munch on our new food products, Valentina Borisovna came to fetch us for the afternoon’s excursion: Arbot Street. This is a long pedestrian avenue in Moscow. It’s one of the city’s oldest streets and there is absolutely no traffic there. None. Cars aren’t allowed there. So, the only killer drivers you have to watch out for are the bicyclists, who are deadly enough in their own way (I swear, they don’t really try to dodge you. No, they don’t!). It’s also where a lot of painters set up shop to sell to the tourists and other people. Some of their artwork was really beautiful, and it’s rather a shame that I couldn’t take pictures or buy them- the canvases and their frames would have been way too heavy for Delta’s free baggage check weight limit! I did buy one smaller piece, though. Now all I have to do is decide whether I’m going to give it to someone else, or if I’m going to keep it for myself. We shall see.
Lots of other nifty things are on Arbot street. There’s a monument to Pushkin, for example, because he lived in a house there. The house is a museum about him now, in case you were curious. Let’s see.... There’s the statue for the famous singer whose name escapes me. One of his songs was about Arbot street, so I suppose it’s rather fitting. While we were there, Pushkin’s opposition was making speeches by it. We didn’t stick around (Lots of police officers were there, and worrying about them asking for papers? No thank you.) but there were a lot of people who did. Ah, the joys of politics. We wound up eating at this little cafeteria style restaurant called MуМу. The food there was good, identifiable (Well, mostly. With a bit of help from Valentina Borisovna, at any rate.) and best of all, it wasn’t too horribly expensive! After МуМу, we pretty much went back to the dorms and crashed for the night.
Now, МуМу was not the only place we explored on Sunday. No, we were also introduced to one of Russia’s traditional foods, which is absolutely amazing: блины. Блины is wonderful. It’s incredibly yummy, provided you get a good interior, it’s filling, and it’s cheap. We have discovered a lovely little блины store in our neighborhood, and I have plans to try every variety of блины that they offer, provided that it doesn’t sound too disgusting. And by the time I leave, I will try блины с икрой. This is not an option! It’s like, the most traditionally Russian food I can think of (Ok, so borsch is the most traditionally Russian food I can think of, but блины с икрой makes a close second) and it must be tried. Besides, I like that sort of thing. Given my feelings about sea food, fish eggs should be right up my alley. (For those of you who haven’t shoved my random Cyrillic into Google Translate just yet, блины с икрой is blini with caviar.)
Let’s see..... that’s about it for our first Sunday. Nothing too horribly earth shattering, but fun all the same. At least, until our feet got tired. We did get to take the metro, though, and I always support the metro, because it is public transport. Not to mention that I just like metros. I blame Paris for this. Metro stops in Moscow, by the by, are not like metro stops in Paris. They made a conscious effort to make each one individual and pretty. I’m still debating whether I approve of this or not. I’m leaning towards the not; having lots of statues or painting or marble in your metro stations just seems a tad bit ostentatious and out of place to me. Better to spend the money on something worthwhile and keep it simple and uniform. What I most certainly do not approve of is incredibly long, high escalators to reach the metro platforms. No. I do not approve of this at all. Nope. Not in the least. They’re terrifying. I have to keep my eyes shut the entire time on the way down, or I get close to hyperventilating. Those escalators are not nice to people with a fear of heights. They really aren’t.
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