* Jim Dale from Barnum the musical
And going to see all those Broadway shows finally pays off, isn’t it a wonderful life Jimmy Stewart.
Monday was a nonevent day. We didn’t get moving very fast and when we were moving we went nowhere.
The previous night the hotel was filled with guests and the vast majorities were athletes. I walked around the hotel looking for some soda because I was in need. Caffeine headaches are not fun. I was tired and it seemed too much trouble to go through the language barrier to get what I wanted so I just went back to the room. I paid for it the next morning.
We had two hungry kids and I had a headache. We went down stairs at 7am to catch the opening of the breakfast buffet, we had waited several hours. I don’t know what time it opened, the sign said 7am last night, but the place was busy and very full at a few minutes after seven. It was twelve dollars per and it was a pretty good buffet. Being a nonamerican buffet they had no soda. I had cranberry juice which has no caffeine in it. Teri had a coffee. The buffet was good. It had a lot of things that Nastia would eat. Peppers, eggs, lettuce, tomatoes, and lots of stuff Elena would eat. Teri and I enjoyed it too. The Russian pastries as I’ve said before are not as sweet as American and are a little disappointing.
After breakfast we tried to get a hold of CJ and Fran, but we waited too long. It was chilly and we had no coats for the girls and we were short on clothes that fit the girls so we went to an outlet mall to get some clothes for the girls. We ended up at Gloria Jeans, I don’t know if they have them in America, but the mall was just like an American mall, just smaller. We spent about two hundred dollars on about six outfits and I took the girls outside while Teri checked out. The girls weren’t cooperating and a security guard came by and told them quit climbing on the rails and act good. We then went up stairs to see if there was anywhere to eat and while looking the girls were climbing on the rails again and again a security guard came over and told them to quit climbing on the rails and act good. Where was I during all this you might ask? I kept telling them to quit climbing on the rails and act good. I think the guards noticed the trouble I was having with them and came over. They weren’t out of control; they were just not listening as quickly as I wanted. Does that sound credible? I really did have them under control. They like and respect me. Really, they do, really!
We went to eat lunch after that and on the third floor of the mall there is a food court. They had a KFC, an Uncle Sam’s café and two other places that didn’t interest us (Teri and I). We decided to eat at Uncle Sam’s and have a pizza, French fries and soda. We start ordering in Russian (a word or two in Russian and lots of pointing) to a girl. A guy takes over after we have ordered the pizza and he slips in a word of English and Teri goes you speak English? He smiles and says yes he does and that he’s has not been to American, but would like to go. Teri says that if he is wording here we are coming here for every meal he is working. He only works weekends. So we ate lunch, it was ok, and haven’t been back.
English is very often spoken here in Moscow; it seems the exception when it is not. The only think I really hate is not being able to read the signs and the memos and street signs. I feel like a functioning illiterate. It can make you feel real dumb sometimes.
After the lunch and shopping we tried CJ and Fran and they still weren’t back and we were going to try to go the zoo, but I didn’t feel confident we could get there. We ended up staying in the room We seem to be getting up a like 3am, 4am, sometime as late as 5am. This may sound like it is not a bad thing, but come early afternoon you get tired really quickly and so we all went to the room. CJ and Fran called and said they were going to the Moscow Circus and we sort of invited ourselves and without tickets CJ and Fran introduced us to the Moscow Metro. It is beautiful, mostly easy to use and has a few surprises, like the escalators (they are fast and steep).
We get on a train down the street from the hotel, past a little hot dog stand that looks like its name is crap dog. Several stops later we get off and switch to another train, and arrive at the circus. During the ride over to the circus CJ tells me about the metro and how to use it we are going to try and use it tomorrow and go to red square and or The Hard Rock Café.
On the way to the circus there are several aisles of vendors. CJ and I split off from the others to get Teri, Nastia, Elena and I tickets, on the way there we stop at a vendor and get this potato thing, which is good and eat it on the way to get the tickets. I comment to CJ that if this was the city I would never buy something from a vendor like I have been doing here. He replies that he just wants to know if it walks or flies. I add creeps (as in Mice and Rats). We meet at an agreed spot and have a flour tortilla filled with chicken, ketchup, mayonnaise, peppers and other assorted items and again it was good.
At the Moscow circus, it is a small building maybe half the size of Madison square garden and the like. We go inside and of course a bathroom break is needed. The show starts and we have to hustle to get to our seats and we miss a little of the start. It’s a lot pageant and light show with some amazing feats of strength.
The first act is a dog act and it was very good, next the clowns, a man and a women who entertained while the next act set up. It was different from circuses of old. Here there were lots of pageant, lots of beautiful women with little clothing on at sometimes and a dazzling light show.
During all this enjoyment, we had two suddenly sleepy girls on our hands. One tried to crawl into my arms and sleep. Failing to get comfortable she chose to sleep next to me. The other one, Elena has to go to the bathroom and when she gets back she too wants to fall asleep. She starts in my arms, tries to stretch out over two seats in my arm, then use my coat as a pillow, next she slides under an arm rest and finally she stretches her legs under a third seat, kicking and awakening her sister. I am not exagerateing when I say the minute she got comfortable the house lights go up and people get up and start moving around. Mind you I didn’t say leave. Teri and I are tired and the kids are asleep already, we figure we will try and find CJ, Fran and their son Max to convince them to leave. I look around for them and see them in the mirrored wall talking to Teri and the girls. They are ready to go even of it is only intermission. So we all get out of there having had an enjoyable evening even if we only saw half the show.
The Metro home was enjoyable and an easy trip. Teri played flip the invisible coin with the girls and everyone got involved. We got home around ten and went to bed and I think we got up again around five or so.
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