I have to say a few words about the instant coffee we've been drinking, its awful. I've never been an instant coffee girl, but here in Moscow we have quite a selection of instant coffee, Nescafe (Classic and Gold), Folgers and Maxwell House. They are all terrible. So the other day we thought we would pick up a French Press at our local grocery store and that would save us. We both really like our coffee in the mornings. Anyway, we're in the grocery and find a little kiosk in the middle of the store with various coffees and many different sized French Presses. So we find one that we like for about $25. I go to the front and there is a woman sitting in a chair doing some sort of inventory and there is a hand written sign on the counter, of course it means nothing to me, and our dictionaries are buried in my bag. So I proceed to stand there, look at her, and will her to wait on us. She won't make eye contact, of course, and Bill says to me he thinks she must be closed. I really want good coffee so I stand there for another minute or so, and then we leave without our French Press. Oh well, maybe next time.
We had a fun day yesterday (Saturday). We made it out of the apartment around 11:30am with a plan to visit the Pushkin Museum. Buying tickets was slightly confusing because there was the regular ticket, the ticket to the Impressionists (different building) and a ticket to the Italian Masters. Bill got us the ticket for the main museum, that my guide book indicated also included some of the impressionists. Unfortunately my book was not correct and all the impressionists had been moved to the other building, for which we didn't have a ticket. We saw many beautiful works of European Art from the 13th - 18th centuries, but no impressionists. We'll be going back to see them later in the week.
Across the street from the Pushkin is the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer. Wow, it is totally amazing and slightly over the top, but beautiful nonetheless. Apparently the original cathedral was blown up on Stalin's orders in 1931. The cathedral was rebuilt from 1994 - 1997 for a cost of US $200M. Here is a picture of the cathedral.
After the museum we decided to have some lunch. A place called 5 Spice (Chinese Food) had been recommended by Ron and Dinia, and Bill thought we were close so we set out to find it. I have to take a pause to say how good Bill is at finding things. He has an incredible sense of direction. I will have no idea where we are and he will know exactly. He doesn't understand how my sense of direction can be so bad. I think he thinks I'm making it up, but I'm not. It ended up being about a 10 minute walk from the museum to 5 Spice.
We were the only people in the restaurant, which was a little wierd. But the people were really nice, atmosphere was good, service was great, and best of all the food was really good. We both had the spicy ginger chicken. Bill thought it was the best meal he's had in Moscow. I think we'll probably go back there again before we leave because it was so good and its pretty close to our apartment.
After lunch we decided to head to the Arbat to see if we could find a place to sit outside, have a drink and enjoy the nice weather. We ended up stopping at the Doolin House which had outdoor seating under big umbrellas. When we got there the sun was out, there was a slight breeze and it was probably about 75 degrees. Shortly after arriving the wind picked up, the clouds rolled in and a fairly strong storm dumped a ton of rain and drove all the folks into the restaurant from the outside. We waited a while for the rain to slow down and when we thought it was stopping we left. We stopped at the local grocery on the way home and bought a frozen pizzen (yummy!) for dinner.
Back at the apartment we decided to watch one of the movies we brought. I'm really not sure how or why we ended up with this movie from Netflix, someone either recommended it or it came up on a list somehow. Anyway, we watched the movie Brazil. Oh my goodness, I hope I don't offend anyone, but it was really bizarre (not in a good way) and I'm certain that I didn't "get" it. I don't think we'll be watching that one again!
Bye for now, enjoy the rest of your weekend!
1 comment:
I liked Brazil, but when sharing it with othes I have found it to be a hard sell. I noticed from your Net Flix envelops that you had a cople Terry Giliam moviespiced out. Maybe one of the others will be more to your liking.
Post a Comment