Chad and I loved Red Square. It is huge and surrounded by larger than life, beautiful buildings. You cannot ever tire of seeing the colors of Saint Basil’s on one side or the great red walls of the Kremlin lining another side. It seemed everywhere we went we saw something big and beautiful. They have a mall on Red square that is also housed in a gorgeous and huge building. We spent Sunday evening roaming around the square. Later in the week I had rather embarrassing moment when a big bug decided to dive bomb into my cleavage. I thought it was a bee and was trying to discretely retrieve it deep down without getting stung. It turned out to be a big black beetle. I had to be quite the entertaining, frantic, peep show.

On Tuesday morning we went early to Lenin’s Mausoleum. I had to get up by nine. In Chad’s defense we had a two hour time difference against us so it was more like seven, which is awful early for Chad. It was a very different experience. I am glad I do not have the job to watch the corpse. I’m glad I don’t have the job to refresh the corpse. Cringe. That afternoon I headed to the Kremlin and enjoyed seeing the cathedrals and gardens surrounding it. I also did my best to prove that I was actually there. Great practice taking pictures of myself.

Wednesday we tried to go to an art museum. We got there just before closing. But they decided to close early. Bummer. So we walked through town. We saw the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and then walked up through the Alexander Gardens along the Kremlin walls. You can’t beat lying in the grass, eating ice cream with your best buddy in the whole world, in Russia. It was a great way to spend our evening.

I spent Thursday at a convent outside of town. I got miserably lost on the very ornate Metro and almost gave up. But it gave us great practice to make it to the RUSSIAN CIRCUS that evening!!! Daniel should be proud. We had a really great time. It was a good show for kids, so it was a good show for us. I think my favorite was the beginning act when these two guys did this amazing hamster run thing 50 feet in the air. I really cannot explain it–but it was awesome. Chad’s favorite was probably the lions roaring. I was also impressed by the poodles. No lie. They had some pretty incredible tricks. They were probably on steroids. We then went back downtown to find a Georgian restaurant. All the tourism books and things are totally dumb–by the way. Giving you the English transcription just messes you all up! We passed by a cool looking restaurant called “Генацвале на Арбате.” We searched for half an hour for one the guidebook called Genatsvale on Arbat. Finally we discovered they were talking about the same place. SO irritating.

Friday we finally made it to the art museum which turned out to be pretty lame. But we made it. Check the Tretyakov Gallery off our list. And we finished up our trip this morning wandering around the woods looking for a market that we barely caught a glimpse of before we had to hop back on the metro to our hotel. Now we are chilling in the Frankfurt airport waiting for our last leg to Zurich. Good times.

Sunday morning we woke up early and headed to Moscow. Chad had all kinds of paperwork ready for any sort of mishap with our visas. He did the foot work for this trip since I wasn’t really all that excited to be leaving home again. This may have been the best trip we have taken. Definitely scores high up on my best trips. And I didn’t even have to take any vacation time.

Chad was working from the Moscow office with a group on Gmail. It’s a small informal office. Everyone assumes that everyone else there understands Russian. Chad and I gave a lot of blank stares this week. But he does a pretty impressive job of sounding out Cyrillic. I opted to join him for as many meals as possible since the hotel we stayed at charged $70 for breakfast. I got the impression that they expected us to be high-rollers or something since we were staying in their hotel. But we like to save ourselves as much extra cash as possible.

Most of my days were spent walking around the city, catching some of the sights, reading, with a little school work on the side. My only real complaint about the trip is that I didn’t get to see and do more of the sight seeing with Chad–but we really had a great time when we were together. I got home from work and usually just wanted to watch a DVD with Elisa. Most of our evenings involved relaxing in the pool area, watching a movie and vegging out. It was great.

Saint Basil’s was down the street from the hotel. We walked through Red Square most days. Basil’s Cathedral is so great! I have really looked forward to seeing it and was not disappointed. It was bigger than I thought it would be and small at the same time. It seems to shrink when you walk towards it. It seems that most of my first impressions of Moscow reminded me of Europe’s version of Texas state. Except prettier.

Overall we had a really great time.

• Photos of Moscow

We had a nice relaxing Saturday last weekend. We went out with Tony Mascaro and his kids for a walk from Jucker Farmart to a beach around lake Pfäffikon. We ate brats and did a little relaxing on the grass and then headed back to the car. It was really warm on the walk so we were ready for a dip in the lake. Sunburns were had all around. Sadly, the beach catches a huge gust of wind where it lies so we were once again too cool too go swimming– that is until we made our return walking trip. 🙂

• Pictures from Pfäffikon