Our Free Day

We had a free day today so we walked from our hotel room to Red Square.  It was cold, but fun to get out and see the city. 

There is an ice skating rink as you walk through.  It looked like so much fun!

This is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin Wall.  There were two soldiers there guarding the tomb.  There are also tombs of other important people in Russian history along this wall. 

 This is St. Basil's Cathedral. It is truly amazing.  We couldn't take any pictures inside, but it was full of beautiful paintings all up and down the walls and ceilings.  All-brick, narrow passageways took us through all the different chapels. Each chapel had incredible inconostases, chandeliers and processional torches.  There were several displays of coins, utensils, fetters, and other artifacts discovered during excavations of the sites.  We were simply in awe.  There were two guards at the entrance wearing bullet proof vests and helmets! 

 Here is Jeff all bundled up!

 And me, all bundled up and still cold!!  My fingers were hurting so bad even though I had on gloves.

 

We went into the many shops and walked past the outdoor markets.

Tons of matryoshka and other hand painted items to fuel my obsession!

 This is the glass-roofed GUM.  It's an indoor mall with several stories of high-end stores.

After a couple asked us to take their picture, we asked them to take ours.

This is our hotel.  We were right across the street eating dinner and watching a little snow flurry!  Our hotel is great.  The architecture inside and out has been preserved beautifully. 

It's true that people really don't smile.  Even people in service!  But we've found that if we try speaking Russian, people are much warmer towards us. 

We smell cigarette smoke everywhere, inside and out.  How spoiled we are in America!  We actually got a nicotine high eating lunch today.  I had borsch and it was delicious!  Much better than what I attempted to make at home.  Our waitress at lunch was very sweet to us.  She didn't speak English.  Jeff said "Angleeskee?" and she laughed and said "oooh pa Angleeskee!" and went to get the hostess.  The hostess was probably the most friendly of anyone we have met yet.  She was very kind and helped us order. 

We saw an ambulance going down the street, lights and sirens on, but no one moved out of the way.  We were actually walking faster than the ambulance was going at one point.  

There were lots of policemen at Red Square.  They wear blue camoflauge.  They don't give us a second glance.

Many people here speak at least a few words of English.  

To cross many of the busiest streets (like 8 lanes!), you go down stairs, underground.  Usually there's a whole marketplace underground with stores selling shirts, purses, trinkets, cigarettes.

There is a LOT of spit on the ground.  I'm not joking!  The sidewalk is covered with globs of spit.  

    Tomorrow we go to the orphanage.  Alla is picking us up at 9:30 am.  I hope I can sleep tonight!