Please Don’t Ask for Our Papers

The Boy awoke, refreshed and ready to go. I awoke, groggy, sticky and jealous of his ability to sleep in a strange hotel, in a foreign country, with the door propped open and only furniture and glass bottles to protect us.

Now I’m just sounding bitter. But that’s how I felt, probably because I was tired.

I’d also realized some other things: I hadn’t needed to bring a hair dryer, because there was one in the hotel. I’d forgotten to bring a flash card reader that worked on my laptop (a major pain!). And I’d brought too many clothes – namely, pajamas. Seriously. I told The Boy that it looked like this vacation was going to mean more uninterrupted naked time than nearly any other point in our married lives – and not for the right reasons. Clothes were simply too hot. Covering with a sheet was too hot. If I could tour the city naked, I probably would. {But I couldn’t – and I didn’t.}

After breakfast, we headed back into the city center. As we rode the Metro, I told The Boy that there was something very ironic about Moscow’s public transport. The speaker system was the best of any train system I’ve ever ridden anywhere in the world. The problem was that although I could clearly hear what was being said, I had no idea what they were saying. How sad. Even more discouraging, though the stops were written in Cyrillic and Roman letters on our hand-held map, the station names were printed on the walls in Cyrillic only.

A small portion of the Metro map

We finally developed a sense of confidence riding the Metro, thanks to a clever solution by The Boy. He counted the number of stops between where we started and where we wanted to exit. That way, we didn’t have to worry about memorizing the look of the letters to identify our stop. {Whew!!!}

Back in Red Square, we took time to visit Lenin’s tomb (very interesting), then headed off on a walking tour of the historic heart of the city.

Visiting Lenin meant no cameras, no bags, no talking, no stopping…

We walked by old churches and cathedrals, toured the first English embassy (built by Elizabeth I), passed a statue honoring the two monks who created the Cyrillic alphabet {note: at this point of language frustration in Moscow, Saints Cyril and Methodius were not our favorite guys!}, and finished at the Lubyanka, former home of the KGB.

Historic Ulitsa Vavarka

Our not-favorite monks!

The Lubyanka (former KGB). The rock in front is a monument to victims of repression.

From the Lubyanka, we hopped back the Metro (what pros we are!) and headed to Novodevichy Convent and Cemetery. We didn’t take time to tour the convent (more on why later), but we spent a lot of time exploring the cemetery.

It’s the final resting place for many notable Russian citizens. That alone made it interesting. But the Russian method of honoring the dead is fascinating – you truly feel as though you know the people who are buried (even though everything is in Cyrillic!).

Boris Yeltsin’s grave

Typical headstone

Internments – some had glass fronts allowing you to see memorabilia the family had left inside.

However, our goal here wasn’t to tour, but to find a locally hidden geocache in the area. For the sake of geocaching in Russia, which is still somewhat frowned upon, I won’t say where the cache was hidden but we did find it! Let’s just say we prayed a lot that the police wouldn’t stop by and ask for our papers (which they can do at any time) or our GPS unit. We also had to avoid the watching eyes of locals…easier said than done.

We deposited a geocoin that we’d picked up while on vacation in Colorado. The item had a goal of travelling from the US to Asia – we figured a stop in Russia would certainly help!

Successful find without being asked to show our papers!

Back we headed to Gamma for (another) shower before heading to dinner with V. The Boy needed to talk business prior to starting work the next morning and, of course, all good business starts with relationship building.

We had a wonderful traditional Russian meal – it was so delicious that I completely forgot to take photos. Just trust me when I say that salmon and bliny + pelmini (dumplings) + grilled salmon = major yum.

Holy-moly they had good food!!

It was late when we returned to the hotel, but the weather was a changing in Moscow. Our improvised open door fortress let the (slightly) cooler evening air in and we were both able to get a better (though still slightly sticky) night’s sleep.

{And can I just say that we were blessed to have minimal jet lag? Some mental processing errors, a temporarily lost-necklace – mine, not The Boy’s! – and the usual culture shock that can catch you off-guard when you’re tired. Not bad!!}