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Time, time, time...
Jun. 14th, 2003 09:05 pm...oh, what's become of me? (Highly original, I know, but that's the way I feel...)
It's been one long day. I've made it to New York and it's a little in front of 9 pm Eastern Time, which means that I'm close to having pulled an all-nighter (it's a little in front of 5 am in Moscow). The drive from the airport to my parents' house was not much fun; I covered the first 3 miles in only 45 minutes (love that Van Wyck traffic!).
On the other hand the ride to the airport cost 550 rubles this morning, and took all of about 45 minutes, too. I filled out my customs form and chatted with Alla for a little bit before proceeding through exit customs to get in line at the Delta counter. There, once the line started moving, they x-rayed my luggage and then allowed me to check in after having one of their staff ask me the usual set of questions about my luggage. Everything went very smoothly.
Passport control is immediately on the other side of the check-in counter, and duty-free land is just beyond the passport control booths. Duty free bores me. Nothing is "cheap" any more. Ordinary DVDs cost $30. Fountain pens seem to be selling at or near their full retail prices ($585 for a seemingly "ordinary" looking Mont Blanc fountain pen; yes, I know there are many such pens that have much higher prices, but these usually have some kind of decoration or are themed).
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Yesterday, after leaving the Internet salon, Alla and I went to the Park Pobedy (Victory Park) metro station, which opened recently according to Alla. It does have a new-metro-station look and smell, but the local jerks have already managed to scrawl graffiti on the walls, which takes away from the overall effect.
We went there because I wanted to go to the nearby Borodino museum, which is dedicated to the history of the Battle of Borodino, which was fought during the war with Napoleon. The last time I'd been at this museum was over 2 decades ago, and I wanted to visit it again and look at the main attraction of the place (a panoramic view of the battlefield from a central tower) as well as the artwork devoted to the battle (especially one piece that's haunted me from time to time over the years).
Due to the holiday, however, the place was closed.
So we went across the square to Victory Park, which was filled with folks enjoying the day off. We approached a church that was devoted to those who fell during the Great Patriotic War (what we call World War II), but it's some kind of modernistic piece of architecture that does not communicate the solidity one feels when looking at authentic Russian Orthodox churches, so we didn't bother with it. Instead, we walked around the mall in front of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, listened to some bands, and slowly drifted back toward the metro station.
As the weather was threatening, and as the Ismailovsky Park metro station was at the other end of the line from the Park Pobedy station, we decided to go to Ismailovsky Park, which is the location of the great big flea market in town, the Vermisazh. We got there just as the heavens prepared to loose a great deal of water at the ground, so we ducked into a place that advertised Japanese noodles, and were severely disappointed by the menu (though we did keep dry).
Note to self: Budweiser beer is superior to Bochkarev.
After the rain went away, we emerged and walked around the flea market, but it seemed all the booths were selling the same old thing (cheap optics, old military gear, flasks for liquor, nesting matreshka dolls of various kinds, painted enamel boxes, chess sets, tee shirts, scarves, and assorted junk).
I did run across a booth run by a used book dealer, and there were some interesting dictionaries for sale, but the prices being asked were way too high, and the dictionaries were way too specialized. (Both were Russian-Russian. One was a dictionary of military jargon, while the other attempted to catalog the jargon of criminals, labor camp inmates, and thieves. I don't translate many documents along those lines <grin>, and the seller wanted $20 and $30, respectively, for the books.) We left without buying anything (actually, Alla did buy some stockings from one of the unofficial sellers who line the sidewalk between the flea market and the metro station, but that doesn't really count).
There are huge amounts of things I want to talk about, but I am well and truly tired. More tomorrow, and onward.
Cheers...
It's been one long day. I've made it to New York and it's a little in front of 9 pm Eastern Time, which means that I'm close to having pulled an all-nighter (it's a little in front of 5 am in Moscow). The drive from the airport to my parents' house was not much fun; I covered the first 3 miles in only 45 minutes (love that Van Wyck traffic!).
On the other hand the ride to the airport cost 550 rubles this morning, and took all of about 45 minutes, too. I filled out my customs form and chatted with Alla for a little bit before proceeding through exit customs to get in line at the Delta counter. There, once the line started moving, they x-rayed my luggage and then allowed me to check in after having one of their staff ask me the usual set of questions about my luggage. Everything went very smoothly.
Passport control is immediately on the other side of the check-in counter, and duty-free land is just beyond the passport control booths. Duty free bores me. Nothing is "cheap" any more. Ordinary DVDs cost $30. Fountain pens seem to be selling at or near their full retail prices ($585 for a seemingly "ordinary" looking Mont Blanc fountain pen; yes, I know there are many such pens that have much higher prices, but these usually have some kind of decoration or are themed).
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Yesterday, after leaving the Internet salon, Alla and I went to the Park Pobedy (Victory Park) metro station, which opened recently according to Alla. It does have a new-metro-station look and smell, but the local jerks have already managed to scrawl graffiti on the walls, which takes away from the overall effect.
We went there because I wanted to go to the nearby Borodino museum, which is dedicated to the history of the Battle of Borodino, which was fought during the war with Napoleon. The last time I'd been at this museum was over 2 decades ago, and I wanted to visit it again and look at the main attraction of the place (a panoramic view of the battlefield from a central tower) as well as the artwork devoted to the battle (especially one piece that's haunted me from time to time over the years).
Due to the holiday, however, the place was closed.
So we went across the square to Victory Park, which was filled with folks enjoying the day off. We approached a church that was devoted to those who fell during the Great Patriotic War (what we call World War II), but it's some kind of modernistic piece of architecture that does not communicate the solidity one feels when looking at authentic Russian Orthodox churches, so we didn't bother with it. Instead, we walked around the mall in front of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, listened to some bands, and slowly drifted back toward the metro station.
As the weather was threatening, and as the Ismailovsky Park metro station was at the other end of the line from the Park Pobedy station, we decided to go to Ismailovsky Park, which is the location of the great big flea market in town, the Vermisazh. We got there just as the heavens prepared to loose a great deal of water at the ground, so we ducked into a place that advertised Japanese noodles, and were severely disappointed by the menu (though we did keep dry).
Note to self: Budweiser beer is superior to Bochkarev.
After the rain went away, we emerged and walked around the flea market, but it seemed all the booths were selling the same old thing (cheap optics, old military gear, flasks for liquor, nesting matreshka dolls of various kinds, painted enamel boxes, chess sets, tee shirts, scarves, and assorted junk).
I did run across a booth run by a used book dealer, and there were some interesting dictionaries for sale, but the prices being asked were way too high, and the dictionaries were way too specialized. (Both were Russian-Russian. One was a dictionary of military jargon, while the other attempted to catalog the jargon of criminals, labor camp inmates, and thieves. I don't translate many documents along those lines <grin>, and the seller wanted $20 and $30, respectively, for the books.) We left without buying anything (actually, Alla did buy some stockings from one of the unofficial sellers who line the sidewalk between the flea market and the metro station, but that doesn't really count).
There are huge amounts of things I want to talk about, but I am well and truly tired. More tomorrow, and onward.
Cheers...
