Russia

Moscow

I was a bit later getting to the airport to pick up Mark than I had hoped. Fortunately (for me), he was getting his first taste of the normalcy in this corner of the world that makes customs clearance at Moscow's Sheremyetevo airport such a long ordeal. So, I ended up being a bit early and waited about 20 minutes for him to come through..

The first thing that I noticed was his new goatee. Interesting, since I had decided to start sporting one only a few weeks earlier. We walked out off the airport grounds and grabbed one of the gypsy cabs back into the city.

That night, we ate at a restaurant near my apartment that had good pizza, Tratoria, and then headed to Bill and Marty's Boarhouse for drinks. Not much exciting was happening, so we headed home and and turned in early.

Mark and I spent the better part of the day walking around the market at Ismailova, looking for Christmas gifts. This place was the best for souvenirs, sporting everything from oil paintings and religious icons to Soviet flags and chonometers from Soviet Migs and submarines.

In the evening, we headed to the infamous Hungry Duck, now known as Fiesta but still sporting the occasional scene of unspeakable debauchery. Later, we made our way to Club XIII, and enjoyed quite a show there as well, what with the dancers in the cages hanging from the ceiling and the stunning devushkas everywhere.

In the morning, we took the metra a short ways outside of central Moscow to the CD ryonik, where one can buy anything that can be saved to tape or a compact disc, being primarily movies, music and software. It was interesting to see the varied spellings on what often looked to be legitimate products - I once saw a CCR album with at least one mis-spelling in each song title.

In the afternoon, we strolled through Red Square, taking in the sight of the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. We eventually made our way down to the river and decided to take a boat cruise, which provided a new persepctive on many of the buildings that we had strolled past earlier. Unbeknownst to us, the boat followed a circular route and finished for the day at a different point than from which we started. So, we had a bit of hoofin' it to do to get back home at the end of the day, but a little exercise at the end of the day never hurts.

Monday morning meant off to work for the pentultimate day of my tenure in Moscow. Not much exciting happening, just a lot of re-assigning work and tieing up loose ends. I had arranged a tour guide to take Mark through the Kremlin. It sounded like the tour when well.

The evening was spent packing. This lasted until about 3:00 AM, when I finally gave up and hit the hay.

The movers arrived around 9:00 AM. They did a pretty efficient job of wrapping everything up and getting it stowed away, finishing after only a couple of hours.

Mak opted to sleep during the afternoon, while I headed in for my last afternoon at the office and the requisite rounds of vodka and fond farewells. Of course, it did not stop

AM - movers come

Afternoon - Mike works; Mark sleeps

PM - Going away send off at Boarhouse (until 8:30); Midnight train to St. Petersburg

Raining upon arrival in SP

move into Karavannaya Apartment

walk around + buy rain panchos; Eat at Patio Pizza

to Peterhof late

eat at Tinkhoff Brewery late + celebrate Mark's birthday

visit internet cafe