Sunday, May 17, 2009

Our afternoon / evening in Moscow

Yesterday afternoon after our catnap, we ventured out on our own and made our way to the Kremlin, Red Square, and St. Basil's Cathedral. Here are some photos of what we saw:

Our first stop was the supermarket around the corner from our hotel to get some bottles of water. One liter bottles of water were 33 Rubles (around $1). Sweet!

Next, we started walking towards our destination. We found a street vendor selling fruit:

And cars parked on the sidewalk:


As we were figuring out how to cross the street (you go under the street by the Kremlin), we found the Dannon store:

We are pretty bummed that we didn't have enough time to go in and check it out. Is it an entire store of yogurt? I love yogurt!! Maybe next trip.....
We finally made it to our destination. It was only a 10 minute walk - not bad! Here is me in front of (from left to right): The State Historical Museum, St. Basils (it is way in the back), and the Kremlin.

To get to St. Basils, we walked through the Red Square. There we saw Lenin's Tomb:



And this fountain:
We haven't determined what it is yet, but lots of people were walking up to it and throwing money at it. Always willing to part with our cash, we walked up and threw a few coins at it as well. We took a picture of the sign next to it and we'll try to figure out what the significance of this is. We'll get back to ya!
Next, St. Basil's:
As we left Red Square, we walked by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We didn't take any pictures - but we are going back next trip to see the changing of the guard. It is supposed to be pretty impressive. I can't wait to see how it compares to our changing of the guard!
There is a park off of red square and we saw these pretty flowers:'
And this statue - which we know is famous but we can't remember why. Another thing for us to
look up!
And this one:

We don't know what this one is either, but who doesn't want to take a picture of a bear attacking a wolf? We are fondly calling this one "Statue off of Red Square right next to the McDonalds and Sbarro". Nice, huh?

We ended our evening back at the hotel for a nice dinner. We met three other American families there that just picked up their babies and are waiting to do their Embassy paperwork so they can head home. The kids are so cute! And young!

We leave for Tyumen (which we found out is pronounced TIE - MEN) in a few hours. It is a four hour flight and we are gaining another hour. We'll update again tonight if we can!

1 comment:

LowerTeakwood said...

So glad you guys made it. Looks like your enjoying your trip. At least you guys had seats together on the plane! Shan