Москва и Другие Вещи

Last weekend, Tim and I ventured to the small and inexpensive city of Moscow. (if you didn't catch that then shame on you since Moscow is at least 10 million people and is the most expensive city in the world) After taking the overnight train from Novgorod, where the first five minutes in the train were so awkward b/c our cabin mates did not say a word to us. Therefore, there was an awkward silence whereby I almost started laughing b/c I found it so humorous. Anyway, didn't sleep well but arrived in Moscow at 5:30AM. One thing I learned very quickly, Muscovites aren't very friendly, especially the women who work in the metro. We took the metro to meet Christian and go back to sleep. But first we went grocery shopping. Moscow was a lot of fun. On Friday, Tim and I walked around the city, went Arbat St. and the Kremlin. Unfortunately, Red Square was closed b/c there was a concert there that lasted the entire weekend. Uber Lame, I mean Очень Lame. I did see bagpippers in the Kremlin and was rather curious as to why they would be there, oh well TIR. Saturday was also fun. Christian took us to an Electronics Market where I bought a cell phone. Earlier I found a sim card on the ground in Novgorod and it worked in Moscow but it no longer works now, жаль. We also visited a local German beerhouse where we promptly had sausages and beer. It was marvelous. We then proceeded to go meet our friend Khatia in another part of town. Khatia went to Olaf for a year, she was an exchange student from Russia. We spent a couple hours with her and tried to go to the circus but the season hasn't opened yet so we walked around the city some more. On Sunday, we met up with some of Christian's friends and walked around the city and also saw Chuck and Larry in English. I forgot that I was in Russia during the film. One thing that I didn't expect from a Russian cinema are metal detectors and the fact that it looks really nice inside. It looks like the elite member lounge in an airport, US Airways Club or United Red Carpet, something like that. At the end of the day we saw Moscow City. This is where all of the international corporations are building their offices like IBM. They're really amazing. One of the buildings is supposed to be the tallest building in Europe. You can really see the change that Russia is going through there. The metro stations in the area don't even look like Russian metro stations. Jumped on the train back home and arrived 4 hours before class started. So I was in good shape.