Happy (Frozen) Family!

Red Square




Red Square

 


Charlie's favorite sight of the day- The Horse Statue



Our guide, translator, and driver, Alex the Incredible took us out sight seeing on Saturday. The temperature was -15F so our time walking was very brief. The wind and snow was terrible, we basically ran to Red Square, snapped a few pictures, then ran back to the car parked about a half mile away. I've never experienced cold that made my legs feel prickly and numb. My mouth stopped working properly too. It was crazy cold. Charlie had two favorite sites- the statues of the horses and the goose-stepping changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier. He practiced his march on the way back to the car, it was so adorable.



Church of Christ

Then we drove to Church of Christ, which in Alex's opinion was the BEST church in Moscow. It was near his boyhood home and he talked to us about how during Communist times it was distroyed by tanks. 50 years of construction and centuries of history was gone.....It was accurately rebuilt down to the tiniest detail, this time only taking 7 years to construct. All the money used to rebuild it was donated by wealthy businessmen.

Then we drove to Sparrow Hill to pick up some nesting dolls and gifts at the straw market. Supposedly it has the best view of Moscow- you can see everything from Red Square to the Church of Christ. I say supposedly because it was so cold and windy that the whole city was covered in a thick icy fog at that point. We couldn't see five feet in front of our faces! Alex said Brides and Grooms come there on their wedding day for pictures- we saw 2 couples. However, they would have been better off standing in front of a white sheet indoors somewhere, that's what the view looked like! But they both looked so happy! So I guess it's more about the tradition!

We got to haggle with the street vendors for good prices, which was a lot of fun because they all were selling the same trinkets and all spoke like 10 languages. It reminded me of Mexico "Hey pretty lady come here, I'll make you a good deal!" I still haven't totally gotten the hang of the whole Ruble thing. $100 Rubles still sounds like a lot of money to me! I just can't wrap my brain around the idea that it's not like our money....