Kremlin, Schmemlin

We hit the Kremlin today and boy does my hand hurt. Ba dum. Hey I got tons of em folks.

Started the day with a little coffee and what I thought was going to be a pleasant pancake with chocolate, vanilla and poppy seed. Turns out this thing had enough poppy seeds in it to set off the drug dogs at the airport. If they test at Cingular I'm in trouble for about a year. It was like a poppy seed paste. Couldn't even finish the thing.

The sad part about it was that the waitress gave us the Russian menu and watched us struggle trying to read it for about 5 minutes before she offered us the English version. Even worse, the pancakes I saw on the Russian menu -- nice fluffy American pancakes with that large pat of butter we like so much and a carafe with heated syrup on the side -- wasn't on the Russian menu. That's how I ended up with the drug pancakes.

Kremlin was cool. Couldn't see all of it (we'll go back tomorrow for the tour of the Armory) but what we did see was really amazing. There are at least 3 cathedrals in there that are older than dirt. All built around the 1400s. The colors of the frescos were a little faded but you could still see that they were all majestic in their time. They still are if you ask me. All the cathedrals have those onion looking spires on top of them.

One of the cathedrals had a group of priests singing and they sounded amazing. Almost like those chanting monks. The acoustics were pretty unreal. Of course when the show was over they were over by their booth hawking their CDs. Ahhh, capitalism at its finest.

We stopped by the GUM shopping mall to have some lunch but couldn't find anything we liked. This is the place where the Russians would line up to get their bread and cheese and staples back in the days when communism was failing. That was the time of bare cupboards and not enough food to go around. Today, the GUM has 3 or 4 levels, around 1000 stores and a food court. Ahhh, capitalism at it's even finerest.

After walking a while longer trying to find a place to eat we settled on the Sword and Shield. It was an old KGB hangout and it is located across the street from Lubyanka Prison. They had pictures of all the heads of the KGB and the different uniforms worn over the years. It was interesting.

Couldn't read a thing on the menu so we did the businessman's special and did the eenie meenie minie moe with our choices on the menu. Ended up with some cranberry-type drink, an egg and meat salad thingy, a beany potatoey soup, a hamburger that tasted like ground beef with Lipton onion soup mix and noodles and a pork cutlet with rice. For flying blind with the menu we ended up ok.

Some of observations:

1. The cops scare me. I know I haven't done anything wrong, but man these guys look nasty.

2. I'm glad we aren't flying Aeroflot out of Russia. I forgot to mention this the other day but the passengers on the flight to Moscow actually clapped when the pilot landed the plane. Now I know people used to do that when flight was still a novelty, but in today's day that should not need to happen. I mean it was like these guys didn't expect the landing to happen. What?! Crap, we're actually on the ground safely!!!! Wooo Hoooo!!! My confidence level in the Russian air travel service has pretty much hit rock bottom.

3. 9.5 million a day can't be wrong. I'm not sure how many people ride the NY subway a day, but add BO to that equation and you've got the Russian subway.

Tomorrow is our last day in Moscow and I will miss the place. I know I've cracked on it a lot, but it's a really interesting city with a lot to see. We haven't even scratched the surface. Maybe I'll be back one day.

And if you decide to come, make sure you buy a pre-paid SIM card when you get here. It's a lot easier than setting up your phone for international service and then not having it work properly.

B