We joined The Boy’s colleague, A, at church Sunday morning. Several of the members were away at summer camp, so it was a small gathering but was oh-so-wonderful.
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| Worship time |
Even more wonderful was making a new friend with the lovely woman who translated the sermon for us, O. After the service O and I chatted a bit and learned that we have the same post-graduate degree and are essentially in the same line of work. Too Much Fun!! {We’ve already connected on Facebook!}
From church, we headed back out for more geocaching. We’re bold that way.
We headed into town to capture our most difficult cache, hidden in plain view at a very busy Metro station. Locating it, then retrieving it, was incredibly difficult. Complicating matters was a very chatty Uzbek citizen who wanted to make friends. Under normal circumstances, we would have been happy to sit for a coffee. But this was an afternoon with a caching mission…
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| Don’t look now – the cache is in my left hand! |
Our next three caches were at Moscow State University. The main campus features another glorious piece of architecture from the Stalin era.
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| Moscow State University – main building. Note that the smoke haze had returned. Bummer. |
The caches were pretty clever. The first one required that we avoid a film crew working in the area (obviously not planned by the hider of the cache!). The second was tucked away near the main entrance…and several guards. The third (and final) was further out on the grounds.
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| They said we should avoid prying eyes. Surely that includes camera crews! |
We headed back to the Novodevichy cemetery to track down some graves that we hadn’t been able to find before. (Darn that Cyrillic!) By the end of an hour, we were able to locate Chekhov and Khruschev. {FINALLY!!}
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| Khruschev’s grave |
We walked a little further on to the Novodevichy Convent to tour, but it closed 10 minutes before we got there. The Boy was not amused – this was our second failed attempt to tour the convent.
Dejected, we drug ourselves back to Gamma and decided to try out a little Russian restaurant nearby. (And that seriously was its name: Russian Restaurant!)
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| The Russian Restaurant |
The food was very good, though I thought The Boy was joking when he asked if I wanted to share a banana split. He wasn’t – it was on the menu! Of course, things aren’t always what you envision. So our banana split was actually bananas flambé, with a scoop of sorbet and various flavors of whipped cream.
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| Moscow-style banana split |
Not a US-style banana split, but absolutely delicious all the same. And that’s really all were asking for. That, and a good night’s sleep – and maybe a foot massage.
I think I would like the Russian version of the banana split.
But, one question – did I remember reading the Hayley Daily was taking a hiatus during this trip? You've been awfully chatty … I mean "bloggy" … for the hiatus status. Not that I'm complaining, though. I've enjoyed keeping up on the adventures!
GC2D4M0 – It looks like you were the first to find this one. Amazing!
@Mel – I did like the Russian version very much, though I wished I had more sorbet and less whipped cream. And the mystery of the blog? I was overwhelmed with trying to get ready to go and didn't know what my internet access would look like in Russia. So I put the blog on hiatus. When we arrived, we learned we had wifi in our room, so about midway through the trip I thought I'd start blogging about the experience. I believe I can say I'm officially BACK from hiatus, albeit a bit early!
@John – really?!? That is neat. 🙂
That Russian Banana Split sounds SO much better than US's version. I am not a huge fan of whipped cream though so I probably would have attempted to have mine either on the side so I could add small amounts, or just nix it all together.