In Moscow...

Everything went fine with the flight to Moscow from Baikonur. The bus into town from the airport encountered marvelously little traffic, but even so, we got in at nearly 9 pm. Along the way, I called Alex, my erstwhile cabbie, and we agreed to meet at the Marriott on Tuesday, where he would drop off my wallet. For that reason, along with a lack of enthusiam for schlepping my stuff and myself to my sister-in-law's at that hour, I decided to spend the night at the Marriott Aurora on Petrovka.

After settling in, I met with some campaigners and walked them to Red Square, where the ladies decided to go shopping. Dwight and I went back to the hotel. Coming up out of the pedestrian crossing from the Hotel Metropol to the Bolshoi Theater, this guy darts in front of me and drops a plastic bag filled with something that's supposed to look like a wad of hundred dollar bills.

I walked on. The drop was the kickoff to a scam I don't completely understand, but the unhappy wretch who picks up the bag in order to return it ends up being accused of stealing the money in front of (accomplice) witnesses, and threatened with having the (accomplice?) cops involved. Since this scam has been going on for a while, I guess it nets is share of marks.

The next morning, I tried to get some new business cards made first thing, but the price (750 rubles or so), combined with a lack of a suitable Photoshop file (I had blocked out what I wanted and saved it as a PostScript file, which apparently wasn't good enough) led me to defer this move until some other time. In any event, I got back to the hotel in plenty of time to meet with Alex Ch., who had promised to stop by and return my wallet to me.

I had planned to stop by the NetCity Internet cafe on Kamergerskiy and update my LJ afterwards, but Alex, who had indicated during our conversation that he would not be able to drop me off at my sister-in-law's suddenly remembered he had business in that part of town, so 10 minutes later, I was checked out and we were off toward Alla's. In the end, I was able to reward him and save a few rubles in cab fare, which was a nice ending to a fine adventure for my wallet.

Upon reaching Alla's place, I had to wait a short time for my mother-in-law to get home, after which I set off to the "Gorbushka," to see if I could pick up some classic Russian films on DVD and to see if I could find a voice-recognition program that worked in Russian.

While there, I stopped at a restaurant that claimed to be Chinese, the Mei Ling. It was apparent that one of the requirements for employment as waitstaff, besides being female and shapely, was to have Asian facial features. I tried my best "Ni hao!" on the girl at the door, and got a blank stare in return, which is just as well, as I had expended about 60% of the Chinese at my disposal with that greeting.

Russian restaurants love to nickel-and-dime you to death. I ordered something that looked like chicken ding (ля зи джи) for 150 rubles, which did not include rice (another 50 rubles). Throw in a soup (роу ли тан) and a Diet Coke, and I ended up dropping about 330 rubles for lunch (about $10).

Today, I've come into town to check email, post here, and maybe hit a museum for some cultural uplift; I'm thinking the Pushkin, which is not far from here. The weather, which was cool and sunny when we arrived and pretty nice yesterday as well, has turned cloudy with the occasional drop here and there.

Time is burning. Later, maybe.

Cheers...

Lots of walking going on...

...and it becomes painfully apparent that the athletic shoes bought in Baikonur are foot coverings and not suited for really tough athletic actrivities, such as walking more than a few hundred yards.

I walked from Kamergerskiy to the Pushkin and learned that there was a two-tiered system of entrance fees. Foreigners are expected to cough up 300 rubles (about $12), while locals pay only 60 rubles (~$2.30). Now, normally, I've found such rules are not strictly enforced. The rule about photography at the Gagarin museum in Baikonur, for example, says it costs an additional $12 or so to take photos. And while I'm sure you might end up paying that sum if you do the paparazzi bit in all the rooms, I've seen photos get taken with no comment (or charges) involved. (The same happened to me a trip or two ago at the Borodino museum, with regard to photography.)

Not so today. The hard-featured woman collecting money asked, "Where have you come from?" and though I played with the idea of saying, "To be completely frank, I arrived in Moscow from Baikonur the night before last," the idea occurred to me that I simply wasn't that hungry for culture, so I stepped away from the window. In truth, I think I visited the museum as part of a delegation back in 1999 or so, which - while not a reason not to go again - did somewhat dampen my ardor.

From the museum, I went over to the Christ the Savior cathedral, which is almost across the street. The interior is the kind of place where it is difficult not to look up without your mouth hanging just a little bit open. The artwork is impressive, and I nearly put a kink in my neck trying to wrap my mind around just how the artist who decorated the bottom ring of the cupola was able to manipulate perspective so well (and just what the figures would look like from close up and level with them).

From the cathedral, I walked toward Pushkin Square past the Ministry of Defense building, which sort of reminded me of photos of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in D.C. At Pushkin Square, I stopped to check out the movie times for the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and found they didn't suit my tase, so I walked around for a bit until returning to my sister-in-law's.

My ride is supposed to pick me up at 8:15 am tomorrow, which is theoretically plenty of time. However, I need to repack some of my stuff, I think.

Cheers...