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Published: September 1st 2008
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The hotel lobby bodyguard guy keeps staring at me as if I were a dirty American and this were Soviet Russia. If you stare back he just stares harder. I find the best approach is to offer him food and then he smiles.
Food makes everyone smile.
Normally when you take an escalator down to the subway its about a 5 minute ride one way. Rather creepy how far down you go, and how fast. Everyone stands on the right side so those in a hurry can run down the left. Andrew really wanted to run down the Escalator and since I get really tired of watching the couples tongue diving, I took off after him. Which started a chain reaction that had 5 Americans sprinting down the elevator. Echoing shouts of glee and yeehaas! much to the Russian's annoyance. We had to wait at the bottom for Russ, our resident Canadian. He said he was distracted by a pretty girl and didn't realize we had left. I find his excuse acceptable.
The past few days have gone by in a bit of a rush. We left the city for Pushkin on Saturday, which is a town named
after Alexander Pushkin, the Russian's Shakespeare. Except this guy is cooler cause he died in a duel protecting his wife's honor. Don't worry Lauren, I am all up on the duel's if one of your patients get to close. I don't care if he is terminaly ill or not! Honor is at stake!
The smaller city was cool, the summer palace that we saw was destroyed by Germans in WWII and then restored again. They have a whole room made out of amber and a ballroom covered in gold. The city was cool, the food was really good actually. A plate of some sort of coleslaw stuff and pieces of grilled beef. They really are good with their meats. If only breakfast was like lunch and dinner. Of course afterwards Prof. Harley bought us all Ice cream and we wandered the 600 acres of park for a while. I watched Harley scream at a cat in Russian. I think he was trying to seduce it into following him but it only made both the cat and myself try and get away from him.
However, Harley is beginning to speak my language, he took us to a donut shop
and I do believe that the Russian's have pretty much owned us Americans in the dessert category. Donuts, do not resemble American doughnuts at all. Instead they are more like miniature cakes sandwhiched in between two donuts. All in all I was humbled by my lack of baking skills.
Sunday we attended church. A Russian Orthodox Church to be exact. They believe that every sense of the body should be engaged in worship. So they have incense burning for the nose and mouth, a beautiful choir way up high in the back for your ears, the churchs are absolutely gorgeous every piece of wood carved or gilded in gold. The priests wear crazy blue robes that remind me of Star Wars and the entire service is standing. The church looks similar to the Mines of Moria, huge mardle columns line the sides and the Euchrist is in the middle on one end. Surrounded by pictures of Christ and the last supper and the crucifixion, etc. Very beautiful. But you stand the entire time, their is chanting and such. And people walk around to different areas, planting lit candles in front of various Icons like a picture of Christ being
born, and they place a candle their and pray in front of the picture. These pictures of Christ, Mary, and various saints are around the church and people walk around and pray in front of different ones while the service at the front is going on. It is very very spiritual. Some of the group didn't like it at all however. I think the orthodox have some things right though. I like their more engaged form of worship. However it was really depressing to see how few believers there actually were. And in between all of this were Chinese tourists running around taking pictures and talking alot. Women are supposed to cover their hair when they entire so tourists easily stand out.
Then we attended a ballet that evening. Swan Lake. I won't lie. It was rather boring. The head prince guy wore tights that basically screamed, "Hey!! Look at my giant crotch!" It was very distracting, especially when he jumped. And the girls just pranced around a lot. There was no sword fighting. Hell there wasn't even a kissing scene. But the girls in our group absolutely loved it and it is cool to say that I have seen a Russian ballet. Although I refuse to go to another ballet unless Lauren is in it. Unfortunately I have to see another one when I go to Moscow.
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Eric
non-member comment
Not bad
Now you have me wanting to import Russian donuts, great. When you go to Moscow, you better go to St. Basil’s Cathedral. It is one of the top Ten most beautiful churches in the world! I am so envious of you going anywhere near there. So overall, the orthodox experience sounded pretty cool. I still want to check it out. It seems that most contemporary christians can seriously take some things away from it. As for the ballet, I am sorry you had to be exposed to the Bulge Brigade. That is quite a story to have under you belt though, Russian Ballet...yeah thats pretty sweet. St. Basil’s Cathedral would be a very sweet one as well though since you'll be in Moscow--you'll probably be going anyway.