Never Thought I Would See the Red Square

Today we were American Tourists. Our hotel is in the heart of Moscow, so we had to see all the famous sites. We are only about a mile from the Kremlin, which is in the center of Moscow, so we decided to walk everywhere. It’s pretty much just like New York…but without the smell. The city is very large, around 9 million people, and everyone seems to walk or ride the Metro. The weather was really nice today.

We got to the Red Square (which is really a rectangle) and saw the Pokrovsky Cathedral (also known as St. Basil’s Cathedral) and took a picture as every good tourist should. I was really excited to take a picture while it was snowing…but by the time we found someone to take a picture of us…it stopped.


Lenin was not out of his tomb, so we didn’t say hi. And we got to see the changing of the guard process…but we’re still not sure what they were guarding.

Old Arbot Street was pretty cool. Lots of old buildings with little shops and craft peddlers out there. And then low and behold…there it was…Starbucks! There is only a few in Moscow (Russians don’t drink coffee at the rate Americans do). There is another coffee place that seems to be everywhere…on every corner…just like Starbucks in the US. We stopped in one of those too just to see what it was like. Amazingly…it was just like Starbucks…but neither of us could pronounce the name.

On Old Arbot Street, there was a McDonalds and we hadn’t eaten yet, so we decided to go there. Now you might ask, “Why go to McDonalds when in a foreign land?” Well, because this McDonalds was GIGANTIC and we thought it would be neat to go there…in a foreign land…and also because we’ve learned we don’t like Russian food very much. While we waited in line…I counted 29 employees working behind the counter and at least another dozen out in the lobby area. It was really quite the scene…for a McDonalds anyway. (On a side note…I learned that the Russian women who clean the men’s restrooms don’t care that men are in there when they need to clean it!)

Along the way, we found some fun treasures to help us preserve our new daughter’s heritage and after walking about 100 miles, we decided to head back to the hotel. We needed a nap…and another potty break. Maybe we’ll head out again this evening just to see the city lit up at night.