Sean Lennon Day 33, Moscow, RUS
Today was show day, so that means early load-in, which means if I want to see anything, I have to skip out on sleep, get up early and roam. So I did.
It started with a trip down Smolinski Blvd, one of the main streets in Russia. It wasn't quite what I expected; kind of subdued, dark, not too flashy. We walked down that for about 40 minutes, mainly because we got a little lost (which was cool), til we got to Arbat St., which is supposed to be the main drag for shopping. It wasn't too crazy, but I managed to pick up my standard shot glasses, and we found the Hard Rock Cafe Moscow, so I was able to get a pin to keep the collection alive. It was a good time, I was able to make use of my powerful Russian skills. Then, we hungry, weary travelers, stopped for a coffee and chocolate croissant, which is where the language barrier kicked in and my command of the Russian language suffered a mutiny.
We were looking in the pastry display for just the right breakfast item, and we picked the chocolate croissant; it looked great. Alongside the cherry tarts, various other chocolate pastries, the regular croissants, etc... it looked quite good. The waitress was trying to explain what it was, I didn't know what she was saying, so I said "Da, dve." and two chocolate croissants showed up on the table. You have to understand that we were starving from walking around all morning (by this point about 3 hours), we had been hoping to find something like this, we were a little irritable, but now suddenly relieved, until I bit into the chocolate croissant to find out that it was filled with spinach pesto. A nastier shock I could not have had.
After that stop, we marched over to Red Square. We saw the outside of Lenin's tomb (the wait was too long to get in), and, of course, the Kremlin. Unbelievable architecture, like nothing in North America or Europe. It's really unique, which I suppose is quite obvious already... We didn't have too much time to spend walking around though, we were there to work after all...
So we get back to the hotel with seconds to spare, hop in a van and head out to Club Ikra, which actually means Club Caviar. Interesting. It was a pretty small place and took some work to put everything together, but the show happened, there were Russians there to see it, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The bad part was we couldn't hang out after the show because we had to leave almost instantly to get a train to St. Petersburg. It looked like it could have been a crazy night...
The train station was classic Soviet era stuff, like you'd see in a movie. The train pulled up a few minutes late, and we were quite relieved to see that we wouldn't be in the same car as the goats and chickens. We actually had decent "sleeper" cars, although sleep seemed impossible on what they called "beds". Thankfully we were already exhausted, so we managed to pass out while watching Pirates of the Caribbean in Russian (It actually made a lot of sense). That made the 9 hour trip go by pretty smoothly, especially since the bar/restaurant car was closed because something was broken. The upside was we got to see an attendant go up and down the train with a shopping cart full of vodka. It was kind of funny, yet strangely fitting.
It started with a trip down Smolinski Blvd, one of the main streets in Russia. It wasn't quite what I expected; kind of subdued, dark, not too flashy. We walked down that for about 40 minutes, mainly because we got a little lost (which was cool), til we got to Arbat St., which is supposed to be the main drag for shopping. It wasn't too crazy, but I managed to pick up my standard shot glasses, and we found the Hard Rock Cafe Moscow, so I was able to get a pin to keep the collection alive. It was a good time, I was able to make use of my powerful Russian skills. Then, we hungry, weary travelers, stopped for a coffee and chocolate croissant, which is where the language barrier kicked in and my command of the Russian language suffered a mutiny.
We were looking in the pastry display for just the right breakfast item, and we picked the chocolate croissant; it looked great. Alongside the cherry tarts, various other chocolate pastries, the regular croissants, etc... it looked quite good. The waitress was trying to explain what it was, I didn't know what she was saying, so I said "Da, dve." and two chocolate croissants showed up on the table. You have to understand that we were starving from walking around all morning (by this point about 3 hours), we had been hoping to find something like this, we were a little irritable, but now suddenly relieved, until I bit into the chocolate croissant to find out that it was filled with spinach pesto. A nastier shock I could not have had.
After that stop, we marched over to Red Square. We saw the outside of Lenin's tomb (the wait was too long to get in), and, of course, the Kremlin. Unbelievable architecture, like nothing in North America or Europe. It's really unique, which I suppose is quite obvious already... We didn't have too much time to spend walking around though, we were there to work after all...
So we get back to the hotel with seconds to spare, hop in a van and head out to Club Ikra, which actually means Club Caviar. Interesting. It was a pretty small place and took some work to put everything together, but the show happened, there were Russians there to see it, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. The bad part was we couldn't hang out after the show because we had to leave almost instantly to get a train to St. Petersburg. It looked like it could have been a crazy night...
The train station was classic Soviet era stuff, like you'd see in a movie. The train pulled up a few minutes late, and we were quite relieved to see that we wouldn't be in the same car as the goats and chickens. We actually had decent "sleeper" cars, although sleep seemed impossible on what they called "beds". Thankfully we were already exhausted, so we managed to pass out while watching Pirates of the Caribbean in Russian (It actually made a lot of sense). That made the 9 hour trip go by pretty smoothly, especially since the bar/restaurant car was closed because something was broken. The upside was we got to see an attendant go up and down the train with a shopping cart full of vodka. It was kind of funny, yet strangely fitting.
posted by t. at 4:22 PM
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