The Roaming Russian (Major): Я ненавижу что я короткий человек, особенно когда идет дождь (Adventures on Arbat).

Last night I was so tired there was no way I could possibly post about the day. I uploaded pictures, saved them to a draft and passed out. So anyway, because I didn't think I'd take that many pictures on our excursion today, I thought I'd show what I see on my trip from my apartment to the metro, and then what it's like inside my metro station. It's all so much cooler than the DC metro or the NYC subway, and much more efficient. The Moscow metro is always on time, and it's always there within three minutes. It's pretty sweet.

By the way, as I write this, I'm sitting at the kitchen counter waiting for my kasha to cool down. Kasha is sort of like the Russian version of oatmeal. It's buckwheat, and you can eat it at any time of day, depending on how you make it. For instance, I've had kasha twice already, but both times it was for dinner; it had meat in it, and I ate it with a lot of ketchup. I liked it. Today's the first time I'm trying it for breakfast, with milk and sugar, and it's pretty good. Yesterday I had fried eggs for breakfast and I didn't like it too much. Over here there's no such thing as scrambled eggs, really, so I was out of luck. Marina bought like, five dozen eggs, it's crazy. But I guess over here refrigerating your eggs isn't really something you do. So the eggs tasted sour, and when i broke the yolk and tried it with the egg whites, I nearly gagged. I told Nastya the eggs were fine, but sometimes I just don't eat the yolk in fried eggs. I feel bad because she gathered that I didn't like it and that next time, she'll mix up the yolk when she makes them. That might mean they actually DO scramble their eggs sometimes, but, that's just me being hopeful. They probably don't scramble them like they do back home. I might show Nastya how to scramble eggs next time she makes them. So when I left the house, I went to a Teremok and bought some blini, which helped fill me up.

I took the Teremok inside the Starbucks which was right next to it. A grande coffee here is like, four dollars. Coffee anywhere really, is so much more expensive than tea. It sucks. But I think I'll start to head out there about an hour or so before classes start because it's not a bad place to study, and it's right outside the metro station.

I couldn't sleep for two nights in a row (not counting last night), so I was exhausted in class. I kept starting to fall asleep, and I had to shake myself out of it. And we covered some really hard stuff, too, so that wasn't too good. But at least (the other) Irina would make her explanations super funny when she could.

Afterward, we got lunch at this place called Вокзаль (The Train Station) again. We really like that place now. Then we all went home to drop off our stuff and we met up about an hour or so later to walk up and down Arbat street. It's a really neat place, though it's obviously touristy. It's got a ton of cafes and souvenir shops, street artists, and musicians. But it's a really cool place overall. It's where the lead singer of this really popular punk group (think Russian Ramones), Kino, used to hang out. He was in a car accident on one of the side streets of Arbat, so there's this wall everyone goes to on the side street, and it's full of graffiti all about how much people love Psoy (the lead singer) and Kino. People also leave their cigarettes over there in memory of Psoy. Fans wanted a monument over there but the Russian government decided against it because they thought it would lead to more car accidents over there Anyway, it's a cool wall, and everyone from Dickinson always gets their picture taken over there. So if you look at old pictures of Russian majors who went abroad and you see their picture by a wall of graffiti, this is that wall.

Then we saw Queen of Spades at a really famous theatre on Arbat. for what I was awake for I really liked. When we left the theater, it was raining, which I didn't mind. What I did mind was all the puddles! Puddles and short people do not get along. Even though I was wearing short-length pants, every time I took a step, my pants would get soaked. There's this one puddle especially, along my walk between home and the metro, that has been there for longer than I have. It was just starting to dry out after it rained about three or four days ago. When I walked home, it was super huge again, and traffic was so heavy I couldn't walk away from it and avoid it. So after that puddle, I had rain up to my knees. It was so comparable to how wet I got when we went to Brighton Beach. All the puddles put me in a horrible mood. But then I got a hot shower, some hot soup, and a lot of sleep, so it's all good now.

Well, I'm running late, so Paka for now!

A huge business center right next to my apartment

A grocery store. It's about my halfway point between home and the metro.

This is normal parking. No tickets.

A beer and cigarette stand attached to the bus stop.

A smaller grocery store. It's got a flower shop attached to it.

It's not rare to find old men here drinking beer and talking story at any time of day.

It's a hair salon and a tiny, tiny grocery store right by my metro station. I can get a super huge bottle of water here for like, 40 rubles. It's not too bad.

My metro station.

There are usually a ton of shops outside the smaller metro stations. You can get anything from comic books to souvenirs to cigarettes to underwear. Yes, underwear.