Wandering the City

1:10 PM Russia 0 Comments

I made my way to Gorky Park to look around. It was a weekday, so there wasn't much to see, but it's a beautiful park - even in the winter. This was part of the park's entrance:


There was a really cool spaceship at the park on the walkway along the Moscow River.


It's still pretty cold here, by most standards, but the past few days have been a bit warmer than usual. Here's a picture I took of the Moscow River about a week later:

I've been trying to scope out some fun places to go with the family when they get here. The Moscow Zoo looks like fun!


Here's a view of one of Stalin's Seven Sisters, a series of skyscrapers built under the direction of Stalin after WWII. I took this picture from Old Arbat street, a popular street for tourists to visit for all the street vendors and cafes.

 
There are several large malls in Moscow. I'm sure my wife will feel right at home! Here's the view from the top floor of the European mall at Kyivskaya. (The fountain actually tells the time - you can see that it's about 2:30 in the picture)


 Another mall at the Vystovichnaya metro station had some enormous Matryoshka dolls!


So that's what I've been up to for the past few weeks. I'll try to make the most of my time here, and who knows, maybe I'll bump into Edward Snowden somewhere around town!

The Pushkin Museum

11:53 AM Russia 0 Comments

The rooms were divided by style, time-period, or region. All the labels were in Russian, so I'm not sure what was original and was a copy. This room had art from the Middle Ages:


Ancient Egypt and Babylon:


 
The Code of Hammurabi:


Michelangelo's David:


A Portrait of an Old Woman by Rembrandt:


Still no signs of Snowden, but I'll have to keep looking. Honestly, I probably could have spent several more hours in the museum, so maybe I'll have to check it out again another time.

красная площадь (Red Square)

10:24 AM Russia 0 Comments

Whoever designed the Olympic mascots did a horrible job. Nevertheless, the Russians seem to like them. I've seen the mascots all around town taking pictures with tourists.


Also outside of Red Square was this really cool Olympic countdown clock. Only 25 days left!


Across the street from Red Square is a huge underground shopping mall at Manezhnaya Square. It had a really cool food court with a bunch of American restaurants (if you look closely, you can see a sign for Sbarro above the fountain).


There is another large mall that is part of Red Square called GUM (it's pronounced "goom"). This mall was even more high-end than the other one. I liked all the Olympic decorations.


I thought it was pretty funny that they had a dude dressed up as an Olympic glove at one of the entrances.


They even had a store full of official Olympic merchandise. I wanted to buy something, but everything was super expensive.


Well, I guess I didn't find Edward Snowden at Red Square, but check out who I found instead: Stalin and Lenin!

Welcome to Russia

8:54 AM Russia 3 Comments

Hi everyone! A lot of people have been asking me about my trip to Moscow, so I thought a blog might be a good way to keep everyone informed. Feel free to stay in touch with me through email and Skype. My information is on the "Contact Me" tab.

I'm in Moscow teaching English for a company called Novel English. You can access their website on the "Novel English" tab above.

A taxi picked me up at the airport and drove me across town to my apartment. The experience was horrifying. I felt like I was living one of those crazy Russian Dash Cam Videos from YouTube.

I'm not much of a writer, but I've taken some pictures of the area around my apartment, so I'll just post the pictures with a short description. Our apartment is in the North-West corner of Moscow, in the Mitino District. We live near the Mitino metro station (circled on the map below).


Our refrigerator here is about half the size of our refrigerator back home. I'll have to do a post sometime about some of the cool foods they have at the grocery store.


It's only a few minutes to the metro station from our apartment. Most of the stairs in Moscow are stroller-accessible. (There's also graffiti all over the place).


There are so many cars here that parking can become a problem sometimes. Drivers have to get creative sometimes, parking up on the sidewalk (either fully or partially).


Getting around by metro is pretty easy. This is one of the entrances to our station; it says, "Moscow Metropolitan Mitino Station."


The metro stations are all really nice. You just swipe your card here to get in.


Here's a look down the stairs to our station.


This is a shopping center near our apartment. The big sign on the top says "Mitino" and underneath it says something like "Deli Standard." The big beaver says something like, "I Beaver" on its shirt. I think it might be one of the restaurants in the shopping center, but I'm not sure.


There are a few familiar fast food restaurants around here. These Golden Arches are right across the street from our apartment complex. I haven't been there yet because I'm afraid they'll ask me to Supersize or something and I won't be able to understand them.


Let me know if you have any questions or if there's anything you'd like to see me post about. Hopefully I'll be able to track down Edward Snowden before I leave!