Back in the Swing

Back home, yippee!! Last weekend I spent with Mar and mostly chillaxed. This week at work was really hard as far as motivation was concerned, but I made it through somehow. Last night we went to Joudy & John's nice, big new pad for happy hour and dinner, a few people drank too much and thank goodness I was DD!

I played football for the first time in over a year with the guys this morning, even Fatty. My friend Tito even showed up, as a newcomer. I think he had a good time :) I got some sun, enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL weather here in Houston right now and sweat. Mmmm, sweat.

At the moment I am watching class at 1.5x speed and drinking one of my favorite drinks, "Fizzed" by Apple & Eve. It's a 8 oz can of pure fruit juice and sparkling water. They come in packs of 4 and the flavor I am drinking is orange mango. All natural and NO SUGAR ADDED! Delicious. You should try them out for a soda substitute.

Next week Charlie and I are going on a surprise vacation for his birthday. I made it! ...well, it's not a surprise any more because I really wanted his input, BUT...we're going to Washington DC - it'll be Charlie's first time and my second - Thursday thru Monday. I get to see my BFF Jenny T, Jim and Baby Andi and their new digs as well! Our plan is to take in the Nation's Capitol as much as we can in 4 days and just soak in the history and magnificence of it all. We need a vacation badly! I am excited to get away for an impromptu weekend.

Next we will be heading back to MN to see the fam and new babies. Date TBD, but I am hoping October!

Missed the Episode

While in pa roosky, I missed the first episode of Season 6 of So You Think You Can Dance. When I get home it will be one of the first things I watch - yay! Thanks to facebook, however, I found this video that I literally sat in my hotel bed and watched, while grinning and clapping like a dodo.

I can't help but love it and hopefully you'll agree:


I'll be home soon :)

Scammed by the Shashlik Man

Today was my last day in Moscow, so Chris and I took a leisurely tour on foot. We once again went to the Cosmonautics Museum (metro: VDNKh), but this time they weren't closed, so we got in! It was a pretty neat place with lots of spacey stuff to see, including oodles of Yuri Gagarin paraphenalia. I very much enjoyed my time there! Afterwards, we were hungry so we stopped at the VVC (used to be called the VDNKh) next door for some shashlik. Before we could eat though, we wandered a bit and I noticed the giant ferris wheel from Moscow's 850th Birthday (12 yrs ago) just asking to be ridden. 10 bucks later, I was mounting an open-air ride to the top of this monstrosity. Holy crumbs it was high up! I wondered aloud a few times why I had chosen to ride the open-air trolley, but in the end the view and the fresh air was absolutely worth it! The pictures don't do it justice I don't think, but it was pretty cool.

Now it was time to eat. We stopped at a shashlik vendor on the side of one of the walkways. I couldn't read the menu, so chris and I pointed to the one shashlik skewer and said that was it. Then the guy asked if we wanted salad: No. Potato? Sure. 15 minutes later, Fantas in hand, the guy dropped tons of food off at our table. it was like a whole skewer of potatoes and the whole skewer of meat - which was like 1-1.5 lbs between the two of us. After we ate the meal, which was fine - nothing to write home about (how ironic) - we went up front to pay the bill. 2600 rubles. Umm....surely there was a mistake. That's 90 dollars! We said, no way this is right and the guy came back and said yes it is. He pointed to the thing on the menu that said you paid for the meat by the gram. Nice. In addition, the potatoes cost 20-some dollars out of that 90...what a joke. So, Chris pulled out his 1000 ruble bill and we told the guy we didn't have that kind of money. We just didn't. He kept pointing to the bill amount and demanding that. We kept saying NO WAY and we don't have that amount...We were so mad!

In the end, and mostly because we didn't want a run-in with any police-type guys, i fished out a magic 1500 rubles from my pants (tricky) - and that was literally all we had. We ended up giving the guy 2550 of his 2600+ ruble bill. I hate to think what might have happened if we didn't have that much. UGH. I guess we should have asked "how much", but from the prices I saw on the sheet, I never would have thought 90 dollars of food was headed our way. AND, the guy knew better - he totally scammed us.



Anyway, I'm safe and sound and ready to come home tomorrow. I don't feel so well at the current moment (headache, sore throat), but by tomorrow I should be as good as new :)

Next update from Houston! Mwah!

Spasskaya Bashnaya

Tonight after my last day (half day) at work, us four fun kids went to see the International Military Music Festival (http://www.kremlin-military-tattoo.ru/en/) on the Red Square here in Moscow. There were like 1000 participants from various countries of the world, with the majority of course being Russian bands. There were horses (and horse poo), shaolin stunt dudes, traditional Russian folk dancer kids (amazing!) and of course lots of marching bands from the various country military wings.

Finland was a bust, the folk-dancing kids and shaolin guys were my favorite and the best part was: after 2.5 hrs of the show on Red Square, all the bands came in to play together for the finale. 1000 band people, doing their thang. They played Hey Jude, Yellow Submarine (don't know what it is with The Beatles) and another familiar song. In the background sang a choir and at one point (previously, now that i think of it) the Russian National Ballet danced to a song. They ended the night with the William Tell Overture and fireworks exploding over St. Basils Cathedral and the Kremlin wall. It was a pretty amazing sight to see!!

At the end of the evening, we left and had dinner (a very fast one!) at an Italian restaurant about 4 blocks away from the square. Had a White Russian drink and some pasta, now I'm eating some ice cream at home. It was/is also Pooja's birthday (09/09/09), so we wished her well. Happy Birthday Pooja!! I had a great night, glad I went to this thing and am now home, ready for nite nite.

Uno mas dia para mi...

That is jaime-ese (or "Jaimese" if you want to get fancy) for "One more day for me..." at work in Moscow! ...and there was much rejoicing!

Tomorrow I work a 1/2 day for my final day at work, then 4 of us (me, Chris, Pooja, Todd - all coworkers) are going to the International Military Music Festival on Red Square (http://www.kremlin-military-tattoo.ru/en/). This past weekend, the entire city celebrated "Moscow City Day", to ring in the city's 862nd birthday. Yikes! That means a lot is going on in the town, including this music festival. I think they end each performance with fireworks, but we'll see. Something has been exploding in the night sky over here the past few nights, so I hope it is that.

In any case, it's a new and interesting (i hope!) way to end my 3 week stay here in Moscow - I mean, how many times will I be able to say that I was in Red Square watching a military festival?! Not many - so carpe diem!

More updates to come after tomorrow's adventure, then Weds is a full day of freedom in Russia (doing TBD) and then Thursday I come home. Can't wait!

My Diet in Moscow

Every day for the past two weeks my diet has consisted of the following items in some combination:
Orange/Apple juice, fruit flavored yogurt (pear, cherry, mango, berry, kiwi, peach), hard boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes, small cheese wedges, noodles and tomato sauce, grapes, bananas, pizza, chocolates and ice cream.

Ah ha! You thought I was being all healthy until I mentioned those last three! Well, I am doing quite well in my diet, it just takes some thought and the Sedmoi Continent (7th Continent) grocery store. I also brought with me some Oodwalla bars, fiber bars and dried fruit bars for snacks, which have been supplementing my snackiness immensely. I have not eaten out as much as I thought, since I am working some funky hours for dining, but have managed to have some sushi (good), italian food and georgian food once as well. Mostly though, I'm brown-bagging it.

I am ashamed at what I'm about to say: I will admit that I miss my chai tea lattes from Starbucks. How very "Americansky" of me.

Moscow Nights

This morning I slept in and putz'd around the apartment until work. Nothing much to report there.

After work Steve, Pooja and I (all coworkers) went to Ogni to eat some sushi (num!), and then took a cab to a night club called Parisian Nights (i think), nearby. We had a few rum and cokes, plus the obligatory shot of wodka and danced to some serious 90s techno and Ace of Base (when all we wanted was a little shot of "Boom Boom Pow!"). It was a a good time filled with a bare-chested, fake boob lady on the stage, a scary drunken russian man cornering Pooja and I at our dance floor-side booth (we escaped unscathed, before we _think_ he might have almost hurled on our table), a russian gross man dancing with first me, then Pooja - he liked to twirl us on the dance floor - and a nice russian lady saying a whole paragraph of words to me in pa roosky then kissing me on the cheek with a grin on her face...i don't know what it meant, but she was a very nice lady.



'Twas a good night. Made it home safe and sound - none the worse for wear.
G'nite!

Short & Sweet

This morning we (Pooja and I) went to a bridge that crosses the Moscow River and overlooks the Kremlin and the Cathedral of Christ. It is tradition in Russia (Moscow?) when you get married to go to a bridge, place a lock with your wedding vows/date/names inscribed on it on the bridge and then throw the key in the river. Pooja read in a Time.com article that instead of locking the locks on the bridge itself, that the city had constructed a tree on this particular bridge for just such a purpose. Well, we saw the bridge, the landscape views, but no tree! It was a bummer, but a neat little escapade anyway. We ended up on this peninsula on the river, found a neat club "Rai" with some cool mirrors on the entrance and then walked along the back side of the famous old Red October Chocolate Factory. Nothing spectacular, since they're turning it into upscale loft apartments, but a nice place for pictures.



We then headed to Stary Arbat to see the street vendors, of which there were surprisingly few, and ended up having a small breakfast (a baked pudding and thick hot chocolate drink) and chatting instead. A quick run thru the street and then back to the hotel for work.

The end!

Kremlin Part II & A Dead Guy

Today I went with a new coworker here (Pooja) to visit the inner-sanctum of the Kremlin walls - the cathedrals. These buildings are enormous, old and beautiful! In one of the cathedrals were so many tombs/stone caskets, it was outrageous! All were set up on the floor with protective metal and glass shrouds on them, inscribed with the names and dates of each Tsar or important person contained within - some I saw were dated in the 14th century. Inside the Kremlin compound were also the largest cannon and bell ever made. Neither were ever used in practice, but there they were, glorious and proud for all the tourists and Kremlin-ites to see.

After that tour, we decided to get into the line to see Lenin's tomb - the inside! The tomb is only open on select days from 10a-1p, so we were fortunate to be there at the right day and time. The do not allow you to bring in any cameras, cell phones or bags - you go through a metal detector, they search your purse (if you havven't checked it in the baggage room) and then you can go in. What is interesting about Lenin's Tomb is that 1. it's a really quick sight-see if you have the chance (like 30 mins total from line to tomb to out) and 2. they don't actually let you stop and look at his person (see #1). Pooja and I walked into the tomb from the bright sunshine and headed down into the black marble or granite walled bowels of the tomb. As our eyes adjusted to the very VERY dark staircase, we were met by a Militsia (police) guy about every 15 feet pointing you in the right direction or not moving at all. The place was crawling with military protection men. The walls of the tomb are completely unadorned with inscriptions, plaque, images or any other decoration. Black walls and a few lights. Very somber. The whole room is dedicated to one thing only: Lenin's body encased in a large glass box. Lenin rests in the center of a decent-sized room, on a platform surrounded by a 15 foot "buffer zone". We climbed the stairs to the right of the platform and I stopped to get a good look. At that moment, one of the military men snapped his fingers 3 times and gestured for me to keep moving. "Oh!" I exclaimed...and continued to walk really slowly around the tomb. Lenin looks...dead. But intact. I don't believe the conspiracy theory that it's just a wax figure of Lenin laying there - his dead ears looked too creepy and wrinkly to be fake in my opinion...but you never know.



We left there after 3 minutes of actually being in the mausoleum and headed across Red Square to the GUM ("goom") - a high-end mall. We did some quick window-shopping and ended up buying a pastry and mystery fresh-squeezed juice from the fancy grocery store inside. Pooja got a flaky chocolate pastry and i got one with apples and almonds on top. Mmmmm. Her juice was yellow (grapefruit, we found out) and mine was bright purple (beet, i discovered). My beet juice (last picture) wasn't too bad actually, but needless to say it didn't sit very well in my tummy. I felt nauseus for the next couple of hours. Oops!

I feel much better now, all recouped. Headed to bed now, tomorrow we're going to wander around Stary Arbat, a new bridge and maybe something else...

Stay tuned!