Neighbors to the North

In early June, I had a week in Moscow. My 2nd time there. First was Dec, 2001- it was -31F (-35C) when we saw Red Square that time... this time was a little warmer!
The week there was great. Wonderful. Fantastic. We had a free day- which we used to take a walking tour of part of the city. Following- some pix of that! ;)

Outside Red Square

 Sponge Bob and Spiderman were there too

The Kremlin. They were getting ready for Russia Day (I think) Festivities on Red Square, so most of it was roped off.

St Basil's Cathedral

Chocolate store inside GUM (Dept Store)- severely tempting place!

leaving. I love archways!

Tomb of the unknown soldier and the eternal flame. We saw the changing of the guard... weirdly fantastic. I think the soldiers each have a 1 hour stint. I'm glad I'm not a Rus'n soldier...

remnants of a wall built by the Romans

Monument to Mendeleev- the 'Daddy' of the Periodic Table of Elements- who gave me ulcers in college. 

Pavlov- he of the dog fame. Another old 'buddy'.

the most bizarre building we saw. I wanted to go explore it but it wasn't on the bill! Not sure it's open to the public, either...

Ah yes... now that, across the way there is really and truly a Starbucks! No, we did not get any closer than that...

look up! beautiful sky!

and what have we here? Pickup trucks are rare over here... I like to take pix of the American ones when I see them! ;)

checking out the map of the Moscow Metro- exceedingly vast, complex and useful.

another church. Just like Ukr'ns, Rus'ns love their huge cathedrals. This one has a controversial history, though, as it was built after the fall of Communism when the economy was terrible. People were barely getting by but thousands of dollars were spent on this building. Apparently, it is still an issue of conflict today.

The Moscva River. 

construction workers busy cutting cement...there was a guy with a shopvac sucking up all the concrete dust as the other guy cut the cement. No dust blowing around. Lovely! 

this last one was taken as we were leaving Moscow... one of the metro stations is a beautiful series of statues/memorials to soldiers. This one of the soldier with his dog is supposed to bring you luck if you rub the dog's nose. Dog's nose is shiny yellow while the rest is dark. All's gone well for me lately... but I doubt it had much to do with me rubbing Poochie's nose! ;)

flying mice and plastic wrap

Back in time to late June. We'd just arrived to the north of Ukr from the south. First day there, first breakfast. I'd rescued a bunch of peaches (but they weren't for b'fast, mind you), cut out the bad spots, sugared them, etc... but it was time to eat and, knowing that a table full of people doesn't really like to sit around and wait for one straggler to show up so's they can all dig into their grub, I grab the bowl of peaches (there are HEAPS of flies, after all, and 1 minute unsupervised would surely have resulted in the humiliation of those peaches by those nasty beasties), yank open the plastic wrap drawer and grab the wrap and a pair of scissors and head for the table in the other room. A quick glance assures me that they are not really ready yet, so I spin around, head back to the kitchen table, park the bowl, flip that roll of plastic wrap around (I should say that the plastic wrap is just a cardboard tube of plastic without a box- sort of naked or something)... just as a mouse dizzily crawls out of the middle of the tube. Without a minute's thought or hesitation, I let out a bloodcurdling scream- it's pure instinct- and fling the mouse as hard and far as I can. The wrap goes sailing, too, and I drop into a chair. The mouse disappeared (but was found later, dead- it had also been eating poison, it seems).
A fairly large audience gathered right away and we all had a good laugh.

I don't scream a lot but when I do, it's for real and hard to ignore. Like the time in Odessa, fall, 2006, climbing the stairs to Anya's. Linda's following an old man and I'm following her. And a rat (RAT!) scampers down the stairs right at us. I let out a scream of pure terror and the old man in front sags into the stairwell and gasps weakly Oh Lord. I thought he'd died. And I thought Linda would die laughing.
We don't see rats very often but for some reason, all that winter we saw them in Anya's stairwell (she lives in a 9 story apt building). The worst was 3 on the way up and 1 on the way down all in one day. I managed never to scream again... but it took all my courage and willpower to make myself enter that building, knowing what I'd encounter. They were there all winter every single time we went but I've not seen one since. It's still hard entering that building, though.

shudder

hot hot hot!

It’s been hot. Really hot. So hot that any movement at all prompts a waterfall from every pore.

We finished up down south and I came north with some of our visitors, who were leaving. Arrived about 7.30 am Tues. It was hot (possibly hotter) in the south but a whole lot less brick and concrete. All that brick and concrete just soaks up the heat. And the 13^th floor Kyiv apt? Wow. Not much air moving up there. You couldn’t dry off. So I trotted out to find a fan. Electronics store about 10 min away. All the customers were clustered in one corner so I headed that way. A mound of boxed fans and a line of people waiting for fans. I queued up. And then found out there were 2 fans per box and the lineup was for people who were buying one- an employee was breaking open the boxes and assembling fans right there. So- I grabbed a box and headed off to the cash register. Long line. No one had anything except fans. The cashier was asking every customer the same question: One or two? I got the giggles watching all of us clutch our fans and inch ahead in the line.

Back home, someone assembled them while I got lunch. Turns out one was defective and wouldn’t run. Went back right after lunch- fans were all sold out so I got a refund. So, we all just shared the one fan. And were jolly glad to have it!

Today, coming back from the airport after seeing Kim off, saw an electronic board with surface and air temps: Air temp- 95. Ground temp (I’m assuming the highway temp)- 151 (!) No wonder walking on pavement made you feel like you were cooking. Had a huge thunderstorm complete with flash flooding of streets (whee) and hail on our way to the train station. Trude and I are headed east on the train tonight…arriving at 4.20 am. Oh yay! ;) I’ll bet it’s not 100 F at 4.20 am.

Haha

What I Miss

This is the most special time of year, hands down. I wouldn't want to miss it for anything... which is a good thing because I do miss being in the US for the 4th of July. But I'm glad to be here! We have visitors, we have 80% preparedness (as far as blankets, pillows, sheets and towels go)... we are nearly there!

But in the meantime- Happy July 4th! Happy Independence Day! Have a picnic and watch some fireworks for me! We sang the National Anthem and sent each other sms'es. The rest is up to you! xo ;)