Moscow I do not quiet get you yet. Everything seems so familiar but at the same time everything is different from home. On our very informative bus tour we decided to have a quick luch break. We walked past a Krusty Crab fast food place and I was kidnapped by spongebobs evil twin.
I managed to escape and we were able to continue to nicer place for lunch. Our hop on hop off experience was really interesting since the information where you can get on and off varied depending on whom you asked – and never trust the broschure. It can only be wrong. It may say may-october but really it is just for july…..well we were tired anyways and we went on this great boat ride which seemed to be only with russian explanations but later we got basically a private tour since the guy came to our seats and explained everything to us and told us stories about his trips to Wacken and his german friends. We enjoyed it a lot.
Later that evening we enjoyed dinner at a superb georgian restaurant 5642 visota.
After our first night in Moscow we had a small breakfast at Cafe Pushkin and then headed to the center to see some churches (there is a street full of churches) and take tons of touristy pictures. In between the churches we found a very small traditional bakery with homemade baked goodies.
Then us girls took off strolling through town again and went to a market hall with some young designers. I was interested in a skirt but was not sure whether I like ot or not when the woman selling the skirts told me that this skirt can only be worn by really cool people who do not care what people think and that I just might not be ready. This did not make me buy the skirt, instead it made me realize, that I might not be ready for Moscow but believe me you wonderful city, next time I will be ready for you and your skirts.
Us girls and Chris met later at the hostel to have an early dinner and get ready for the Bolshoi theater to see Boris Godunow.
The experience at the opera house could fill a whole article by itself but I try and keep it short. We had great seats. And everything started off as we know it. Then the first scene was finished and lights went back on for a little bit. Then the next scene. The whole thing was a 4 hour experience with multiple breaks inbetween. They were quite nice to chat and see if the others knew what was happening exactly. We knew the story before hand but it was still confusing at times even having the lyrics in english. The first longer break we went to get something to drink but really had not a lot of time to finish it since the bells went off like crazy. The performance was extraordinary, huge massive backgrounds, very richly verzierte costumes and great music of course. At some point I mentioned (this was after they have had a real fountain on stage) that only some kind of animal is missing in this performance, maybe a horse. You might be able to imagine that it was really hard to keep it together when a horse entered the stage. At the end of the evening it all was over as quick as it started and we were left with a couple of questions on our mind like: Is this over or a break? or: Where does the horse live? But if you enjoy going to the opera, you need to go amd see a performance at the Bolshoi!
Wednesday was a day full of headaches for me, so I mainly slept during the day. When I tried to reach my folks it did not work right away. I went to the reception at the hostel for some advice and was told to try the plus instead of the double zero and it did work for Chris number. My numer and my sisters are apparently already taken in Russia because we were not able to call each other but both were connected to different russian phones. At last we were able to meet up and see the Romanov house. Afterwards we strolled through a kids stores only shopping mall. It was just as amazing crazy as you can imagine. Huge toy stores, clothes and shoe shops just for kids and lots of candy shops as well. Meanwhile my sister went to the banja. After a small nap, Chris went to run with the Moscow Nike Run Club and I waited (sleeping) for my sister to grab some food with me. We decided to go back to the same place we had been to before since we fell in love with their khachapuri with egg and their seabuckthorne tea (tea with juice). On our way home we saw a horse heading towards the theater.
On our last day (thursday) my sister left around noon for the airport to fly home and we were gonna do the Kremlin since she had been there already. What we did not know is that on thursdays it is closed. It was raining all day and when we had to wait 30 minutes at a back alley post office for our stamps, it did not brighten our mood. Since Chris did not feel very well anyways we decided to go back to the hostel. Best decision ever! We started to get to know some awesome people there and we talked about science, god, books, history and whatever else you can think of. It really made our day. We had food and the time flew by. We definately could have talked for a couple more hours or days. But then it was already time to leave the hostel and head to the railway station where we hopped on the train to Kazan. This is where I am writing this, in a very modern nice up to date train with nice company on our way to Kazan.