More from Moscow

Today started with me oversleeping, and arriving for breakfast 20 minutes late. I slept like a baby, and think I'm mostly adjusted to the time change now. I joined Chuck and Alexey for more tomatoes and cucumbers, followed by strawberry yogurt (yum) and then meat-stuffed pancakes, which I did not enjoy. I snarfed down a couple pieces of bread and cheese, and another waffle-donut, then scuttled off for a shave before we had to leave. We traveled by van to Sergei Posad, a monastery which is about 100km outside of Moscow. It was very pretty, and I snapped a lot of pictures. It's apparently a very holy site to the Russians and many of them were in prayer there. We had a Russian guide, who gave us a tour, which was translated by two new companions from MISiS. I felt somewhat conspicuous, as we were obviously being given the VIP treatment, and were taken into a locked building and into other areas that "normal" visitors and worshippers were not allowed into. there were various services going on as we were there, and I felt a bit awkward standing around gawking at the people. I took a lot of pictures of the buildings though, which I'll get uploaded some day.

After our tour, we crossed the street to eat at what Alexey described as a "fake Russian" restaurant. Probably the same way that TGI Friday's here is a "fake" American restaurant. The meal started with some bread that was quite good, more cucumber and tomato salad, followed by some soup that didn't translate, but I gathered was like borscht, it was red, and full of cabbages, onions, etc. That was pretty tasty, but I'm not big on soups. Next came "pot of meat" which was a little ceramic pot of beef bits and potatoes. This was served extremely hot, I had to wait about 5 minutes for it to cool before I could eat it. Having it in a ceramic pot doesn't speed the cooling process. I'm starting to understand why none of the Russians that we had in the US ever ordered beef. It's not cooked particularly well here, (at least so far) and the beef in the pot was very fatty and full of gristle. It was definitely "chewy". The flavor was good, it reminded me of curry. I ate the potatoes, and the leaner pieces of meat. Alexey said the meat wasn't prepared right (though I did not complain), and since he has two sisters who are Russian chefs, he should know. Dessert was some tasty ice cream, and some German white chocolate.

After our return to Moscow, during which Chuck and I talked with one of our translators, who is a Graduate student in the foreign language department. It turns out she's completing her thesis, which is studying American terms related to automobiles. We made her day be explaining what a bedliner is, as she hadn't been able to find a definition anywhere, and was under the impression that it was a type of truck, not an accessory for one. I also gave her a few more bits of slang, such as "tranny" for transmission, and talked about a classic car being "cherry". I also speculated about the origins of the latter term, in regards to the vulgar manner in which it is also used, she was very happy, and took down our e-mail addresses, so that she can ask us questions in the future. [Update: Dan Black sent me an awesome list of car-related slang, which I'll pass on to her. This may depress her though, as she thought she was close to finishing her thesis, she may have to start over with this many new words!]

Traffic was a lot slower on the way back into Moscow, but we made it back. After a brief rest, Alexey, Chuck, and I headed towards Red Square on foot. The MISiS website says that the Institute is only a 10 minute walk from Red Square. You'd be hard-pressed to run to Red Square in 15 minutes, forget walking it in 10. We hoofed it down there, and took the obligatory pictures near St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square. Much of the square was closed off due to security concerns, including Lenin's tomb. We ate underground, in a posh shopping mall that is about 4 stories deep. We had some excellent Sbarro pizza, washed down by a tall Pepsi, and started the walk home, stopping by the Christ The Savior Church, version 2.0. Apparently, version 1.0 was demolished in the Soviet era to build a swimming pool for Khruschev, but the new version was rebuilt in the 1990s from the original plans.

We hiked the rest of the way back to the Institute, and relaxed for a bit before heading over to TGI Friday's for our daily dose of high-speed internet. Tomorrow morning we give our presentations, I guess that means I should finish mine now...

Some random observations

Here are a few random observations from my first couple of days in Moscow:

Moscow has a lot of nice cars. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any car washes. The streets are filled with nice Mercedes and BMWs, but they're all sort of grimy. I think there's a killing to be made in the Moscow car wash market, if you can convince the Russians that they should wash their cars.

There are guards everywhere. It seems that every store or restaurant of any quality has at least one big guy standing in the doorway looking tough. I can't believe that crime is really that bad, but it gives everyone a job at least. Even TGI Fridays has one, though he's wearing a suit, and is about half my size.

Pedestrians do not have the right of way. I about got mowed down by a hatchback crossing the road to the art gallery earlier today. We were on a quiet back street, there hadn't been a car along in at least 2 minutes, and I was casually sauntering across the road, when I heard a loud screech behind me, and turned to see a car about 5 feet from my legs. Now, granted, I wasn't paying attention, but the way the alley was built, the driver had to see me at least 100 meters in advance. In any case, lesson learned, don't mill about in the street.

Sidewalks are not necessarily any safer. The sidewalks in Moscow serve as alternate parking facilities. Throughout the city, cars are haphazardly parked on the street in parallel, on the street diagonal, half on the street, half on the sidewalk, and completely up on the sidewalks. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to where you can park on the sidewalk, nor any penalty for doing so, as far as I can tell. Outside the window here, I see 6 cars, 4 are parked diagonally on the street, 1 is parked with the front wheels 2 feet on the sidewalk, and 1 is parked completely on the sidewalk. I don't think I'd get away with this on campus.

Nearly everyone smokes here. I've probably second-hand smoked 2 packs already. There are warnings on the cigarettes, but apparently no one cares. They're more alarming than the ones in the U.S. too. One said "Smoking Kills". Simple, and to the point. Another one said "Smoking may damage your sperm and reproductive organs". Uh, okay...

Berlin Thunder

Oh, since I know none of my guy friends believe me about the cheerleader story, here's a link to Steffi, the one I sat next to on the flight. They're all cheerleaders for the Berlin Thunder. The girls laughed their asses off at my Triumph the Insult Comic Dog DVD, and asked me for the name so they could buy it themselves.

TGI Saturday

We're back at TGI Friday's tonight, taking advantage of their free high-speed wi-fi. We started today with breakfast at the MISiS dormitory. We had a salad of cucumbers and tomatoes. I ate the cucumbers, and skipped the tomatoes. Next came some Peach yogurt, I hate peaches, but this wasn't very strong, so it was good. I had some bread and some wonderful mild white cheese, I didn't get the name of it though. Next came some eggs (didn't touch them, I'll suffer through cucumbers, but I'm not eating eggs for anyone) and some sausages that looked like hot dogs, but were spicier and oozed some white goo when I cut into them. I finished the meal off with some type of donut that looks exactly like a Belgian waffle, but is sweeter.

Then, it was off for today's activities via the Metro (subway). Chuck, Alexey, and I picked up the second Olga we've met from MISiS, and headed out:

I put a lot of miles on the legs today, walking through the Kremlin, where I took many pictures (including some in a cathedral where it was prohibited, though I didn't know that at the time). The Kremlin is huge, but we had a tour guide named Svetlana who showed us around, and she spoke excellent english. She even had some jokes in her descriptions, though I'd studied Russian history enough to know when she was, shall we say, putting a positive spin on things? The history of the Czars is filled with dozens of murders, and coups, no matter how you shake it.

For lunch, we took the Metro to "Mu-Mu's" which is a cafeteria-style restaurant with a Holstein cow theme, like a Gateway computer box. I had some chicken caesar salad, which was good, some chicken entree with cheese, which was not good (I described it to Chuck as "fibrous" as I figured our hosts wouldn't know that word, and thus not take offense). I did have some excellent chocolate cake, and a beer stein full of orange juice too. Towards the end of the meal, we exchanged our second Olga for a third Olga, and her boyfriend. This Olga spoke super-excellent English and provided a great impromptu tour of our next stop.

After lunch, we went to the Tretyakov art gallery. This gave us the opportunity to walk several more miles and look at a lot of portraits of famous Russians, as well as Jesus. Most of the paintings were okay, same type of stuff you see in the National Gallery of Art, but I enjoyed the sculpture much more. Olga III provided a great tour though, you could tell she really loved the museum, and provided a lot of detail on the paintings. She's going to be doing the translation for our presentations on Monday, and I think she'll do a great job.

Alexey had begged off doing any more walking after lunch, and he disappeared into the city. We met him at McDonald's after the museum (didn't eat there) and returned to MISiS. After a brief rest, we headed to a restaurant called Pancakes, located just down the street. Their menu wasn't in English, but Alexey helped us avoid the Squid Pancakes, and Chuck and I settled for the relative safety of Apple, which was quite good, we washed it down with a bottle of Pepsi, then returned to our rooms to fetch our laptop computers.

Alexey left to visit some friends in the city, and Chuck and I headed here to TGI Friday's, since I knew they had free wi-fi from my research online. We're sipping our 50 ruble (~$1.50) cokes and leeching as much data as we can. The speed is great, even if we did just have to suffer through some guy covering "Hit me baby one more time" by Britney Spears.

Awake at 4:00 a.m.

Well, I got a few hours of sleep, but my body isn't cooperating with a 9-hour time zone difference, so I decided to log on and read about the Presidential debate I missed. I at least got a 16.8K connection this time. I wonder if there's a video version I could download somewhere on the net. If so, I could run over to the internet cafe nearby, and load it on my USB memory key, so I could watch it. I should also mention that my sister-in-law Karen is getting married right about now, back in the USA. I was supposed to be an usher, but I managed to weasel out of that by fleeing the country.

Moscow

I've arrived in Moscow at last. We sailed through customs without any problems, though we almost missed an important stamp on our documents going through Passport Control, I caught it, and the clerk told us that we hadn't completed the form properly. The cruel thing is, she was just going to let us go in to Russia without this stamp, which we'd need to leave the country, and the fine for not having it starts at $150, plus graft. We met our driver and host, got our gear loaded in a van, and began a harrowing half-hour journey from the airport to the institution where we're staying. Driving in Moscow is...well...different. I know the cars run the same way that ours do, but people drive them like they have to choose between accelerating, or slamming on the brakes. No coasting, no gentle braking, it's like NASCAR. We survived, and the frequent stops kept us from falling asleep.

We got checked in, after which I promptly took a shower, which was nearly as good as sleep for rejuvenating me. Alexey, our guide/translator, was supposed to meet us at 4:00 p.m., but in Russia, that means 5:00, so I squeezed in a nap while we waited for his arrival.

After meeting Alexey, we converted some dollars to rubles, bought a SIM chip for the Russian cell phone I have, and got some internet access cards (using it to post this, at 14.4K(!) from my hotel room). We then set out in search of dinner. We walked about 2 miles down one of the main streets, and found nothing that both interested us and was affordable. I can see why Russians don't eat out at restaurants much, Moscow is expensive to dine in. We wound up at a TGI Friday's, of all places, simply because we were tired of walking, and it was one of the first things we passed near the Institute. I had some of the worst chicken fingers of my life, but the fries were good. We finished off the meal, which was 1000 rubles for the 3 of us, and headed back to our rooms, buying some bottled water along the way.

And now it's time for me to go to bed, I've had about 3 hours of sleep in the last 40 hours, and I'm beat. Tomorrow we're planning on seeing the Kremlin and Red Square, and eating at some place called Mu-Mu's. I'm not sure what that is, but I'll be sure to report back here.

Frankfurt

Nope, no wireless here in Frankfurt either. The Lufthansa flight was cramped, my femur is exactly as long as the space between the seats, and no amount of geometry would let me get comfortable. On the plus side, Chuck & I wound up sitting with four NFL Europe cheerleaders, who'd been hired to work a trade show in Chicago, so at least we had someone to talk to. We just bid them auf weidersein and are now awaiting our flight to Moscow, which leaves in a little over an hour. I managed to scam an exit row seat for this flight, and the plane is supposed to be half-empty, so hopefully I'll have a chance to get some shut-eye before having to deal with customs. Local time is 7:10 a.m., Iowa time/My Body's Time is 12:10 a.m. Only two more time zones to go!

Update: Found wireless 5 min before we had to leave, but it wasn't free, so we didn't bother.

Chicago

It's pretty sad that O'Hare doesn't have wireless access either. Isn't this the nation's busiest airport? You'd think a wi-fi provider could make a killing here. There's a little kiosk shop where you can use one of their PCs for 65 cents/minute. That seems ridiculously high. Maybe I can find a pay-phone with a modem port...

Cedar Rapids

Made it through check-in in Cedar Rapids, which is apparently the only airport left in the state of Iowa without wireless networking. My suitcase was 9 pounds overweight, which I thought might cost me a small fee, so I asked how much it was. Since it's going internationally, United told me the fee would be $381. Ouch. So, I did some quick shuffling from my suitcase to my carry-on, and kicked out my heavy leather coat to ride back to UNI with the co-worker who brought us to the airport (still have a windbreaker and a poncho) and most of the food I was carrying with me, to get my bag back below 70 pounds. I weighed in at 64.5 pounds on my second try, so then I shuffled four of my 1 pound Twizzler packages back into my suitcase. I'm taking them as gifts, as apparently red licorice is a big hit in Russia, but in hindsight, i wish I'd picked something lighter to bring.

To Russia, with stuff

I'm packed up and ready to go behind the Iron curtain, my ride should be here any minute, and we'll depart for Cedar Rapids, from there I'll fly to O'Hare, then on to Frankfurt, Germany and finally to Moscow. It'll be at least 24 hours before I get to sleep in a bed...