Red Square

Yesterday was Red Square day. We hopped the Metro to our stop and departed in the direction Nathan thought we should go in. Now I must tell you that having traveled with Nathan, I know to always ask "are you sure this is the right direction?" You see, Nathan is afflicted with an inability to ask anyone for directions. This is especially critical to know when you're on foot and facing multiple hills. When I asked this yesterday, he admitted that he didn't know for sure at which I asked,"why don't you ask someone where is Red Square?". Now the next piece of info on Nathan is that he has completed all the Russian tapes that we have and he has a fabulous memory and remembers words better than I do. So, I reminded him that 'where is Red Square' was on one of the lessons and didn't he remember it? Yes, 'Gidea Grosnye Ploshit' was the right phrase but surely we could walk a bit more and see if we could find Red Square. Crazy! Finally, I stopped an older gentleman who seemed kind enough and said, "Isvinitizia, gidea grosnye ploshit" (translated, excuse me, where is Red Square?). He looked up and said in English, "I don't know". He eventually asked another passerby and they directed us in the opposite direction we were headed. This story brings up two curious things. First, no matter if I know any of the language or not, I am ALWAYS the interpreter on our trips (in Spain on our honeymoon, knowing no Spanish, I had to call a restaurant and ask for a reservation for dinner, in Cabo San Lucas I had to explain to the maintenance worker that 'le air conditionado - no functionar' (the air conditioner doesn't work) and that 'no, no muy frio' (no, no it's not getting very cold) and why can't men ask for directions??

We then headed to Red Square. After waiting 10minutes in line to see Lenin (no he's not back from the dead, he's embalmed and laying in his tomb. Kind of creepy, huh?), we decided that maybe it wasn't worth waiting in line for two hours to see someone whom I'm sure has seen better days. We went up in St. Basil's Cathedral. Rumor has it that Ivan the Terrible thought the cathedral so beautiful that he had the architect blinded so that he couldn't create any more buildings. The structure is magnificent and one just has to believe that if this story is true, old Ivan must be burning in Hell (perhaps the Hotel Belgrade?) for this act.

We visited Gum department store (pronounced Goom that stands for State Department Store). It has hundreds of shops housed in beautiful building that resembles a European train station. We had lunch at a modern bistro attached to Gum.

On the way back to our metro station, we stopped at the English Court. Apparently in 1553, an English merchant ship, trying to navigate a northern route to China, ran aground off the Russian coast. The Russians captured the ship and hauled it's captain back to Moscow. After discussions with Ivan the Terrible, it was decided to establish trade relations with England. He later gave this house to England to serve as a trade house.

After the English Court, we proceeded on a death march (there is always at least one death march on any Nathan vacation), to find the KGB building and a famous Russian toy store. We found the KGB building and eventually found the portion of the store devoted to toys although we all felt it wasn't worth the journey.

We stopped by the Hotel Metropol for champagne before heading back down to our Metro stop where our chosen restaurant was located.

We dined on Armenian cuisine at Noah's Ark. The food was good (the photo is of the Noah's Ark featuring grilled veal, pork and lamb), there is a reason why we haven't heard of the splendors of Armenian wine, and the interior of the restaurant was excellent. Unfortunately, all the details were perfectly Armenian except the music. When Whitney Houston came blasting away, "I will always love you", I knew something was up.
This morning, Nathan and I went to the U.S. Embassy to get a power of attorney. Nathan will return next week to the U.S. leaving me to finalize the U.S. embassy paperwork the following week. There was a man in front of us that seemed and sounded Russian who was trying to get a U.S. social security number. The agent at the desk seemed none to pleased and rather exasperated. He kept asking the man if he had created the birth certificate to which the man kept replying that Russians don't make numbers like that. Interesting. The agent was very nice to us and apologized for our wait.

Today, Nathan is trying to rally the troops to go to the Kremlin. Mom and I are still worn out from yesterday's ordeal (and still doing laundry I might add!). We will go to the Kremlin next week.

Tomorrow we will go to Kolomenskoe, a favorite country estate of the Czars, and perhaps attend a ballet performance of Swan Lake at the Bolshoi. Our choices for the Bolshoi are Swan Lake, a one act ballet or an opera of War and Peace. It was a pretty easy choice - can you imagine an opera of War and Peace!?!??