Day 8 & 9: The Park and An Accident

Day 8 & 9: The Park and An Accident

Word of the day: извините [izvinite]: Excuse me

Saturday morning was day 8. We slept in really late because of how late we went to bed after getting back from Kostroma. When we did wake up, I was ready for another day of exploring and shopping of course! We made plans to take the metro to Prospekt Mira, which is about 30 minutes northeast of the center of Moscow (where we are). In Prospekt Mira, we saw a few different monuments and fun things. When we first got out of the Metro station, we saw the Monument to the Conquerors of Space which is basically a statue of a rocket blasting off into space. This statue was built in honor of Russia's achievements with space travel. Here is what the statue looks like: 

Alongside the gate around the park that the statue is located were some small street vendors, selling everything from underwear to paintings to stuffed animals filled with candy. We also saw this native american rock band looking group by the fence. 

As we moved on, we came across the All-Russian Exhibition Center with a live band playing and bunch of other different stands. A few of the stands had food, so we stopped for a snack. We got a middle eastern type of food called a Kebab. It was yummy. It tasted just like a burrito. Here is the stand we stopped by and a few pictures of the Russian guy making our dish.

This is chicken all bunched together. They cut of pieces and chop them smaller to put in the Kebab we had.

Maximo patiently waiting for his Kebab. 

Yummy

The All-Russia Exhibition Center was built in the 1930's to represent the times of the Soviet Union and praise Communism. The statue they have on the top of the column is a couple holding a bundle of wheat and behind the statue and columns is an amusement park. 

On our way to the next monument, we saw this guy driving his four wheeler in the city of Moscow. I am pretty sure they are illegal to drive on the streets, especially because he didn't have a license plate. He is pretty crazy to be doing that with all of the police check points Russia has. But, nevertheless, kudos to him and his bravery/craziness. 

When we got to the next statue we wanted to see, we noticed a group of hip hop dancers filming and practicing nearby. It was pretty fun to watch. One of the girls was wearing parachute pants (girl in all blue). I am pretty sure those pants are going to be the next big thing in fashion if overalls don't beat them to it. 

Next to the hip hop dancers was a pretty neat statue. It is called the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman.  It was built to symbolize the main influence of the soviet land; the working class and the Kolkhoz farmers. To learn more about the history of this monument, you can click here.  It is a pretty interesting story about how the statue came to be in Russia.  

After looking at this statue, we decided it was time to go shopping! My favorite! So, we walked back to the Metro to go a little bit further. 

The hubby :) So handsome. 

At night, this hotel has strobes all around the sides of it. We saw it at night once and let me tell you, it's a party.

So, people in Russia pay to use to the porta-potty. I know, who would want to pay to use those nasty things, but when you gotta go, you gotta go. There is usually either a woman or man sitting in one of the stalls with a desk and you pay him or her about 30 Rubles, or 1 dollar to use one of the potties. 

 We got onto the metro and after a few stops, we got off the metro and walked about fifteen minutes to the shopping center; the largest shopping center in Moscow, called the золотой Вавилон (Zolotoy Vavilon) which means Golden Babylon. How ironic is that?! Max immediately said, "Oh great, we are not only going into the largest shopping center, but also a huge building called the Golden Babylon." We laughed quite a bit and proceeded to walk in, don't judge us ;) 

After shopping for a bit, I got a few new things and we headed to the food court. We had Subway for dinner and it was it delicious. They don't like spicy food here and I LOVE spicy food. When we were in the Subway line, I noticed there were Jalapenos! Man did I load the sandwich with them. It was very spicy and I was very pleased. Afterwards, we went to the supermarket, which was also in Golden Babylon. The supermarket was HUGE and we have been used to little grocery stores around Moscow. We probably looked ridiculous because we grabbed a basket and stood in one place with our mouths open, not knowing where to start. It was difficult to comprehend, but after we snapped out of it, we got right to it, loading our basket with awesome goodies. We love our juices here, they are so amazing! Especially the peach. So, naturally we grabbed about five different ones. 

After checking out, we loaded our backpacks with our groceries and bought a bag to carry the rest. Yes, we bought a grocery bag, like the plastic ones. They don't give those out freely here. We got back on the metro and when we got back to Paveletskaya (where our apartment is) we took a picture by this awesome mural in the station. 

By the time we got home, we were exhausted and ready for bed. We went right to sleep.

Day 9 was Sunday. Again, we were out really late and stayed up until 2am. As a result, we slept in I slept in until 11am, Max woke up a few hours earlier. When I woke up, we began to pack because we were moving to a different apartment! YAY! As we were packing, I heard a noise and looked up at the ceiling. This is what I saw...

                                     

Our chandeliers were coming out of the ceiling! It was the weirdest thing! They would move up and down, in and out of the ceiling. When we finished packing and were about to leave, I swear they looked like they were going to come crashing down. We also saw one more cockroach. Cockroach number 3. It was already dead though, so we left it where it was and left that place as quickly as we could. haha That apartment had character, that's for sure. We moved our stuff to the new temporary place (for a few days) before we move on Tuesday to our official apartment. I don't think I have ever moved this much in my whole life. The temporary place is quite interesting though. It has pink accents and the bathroom feels like sea world. The pictures speak for themselves, so I will let you take a look...

Our View 

Sea World!

Pink Accents. Beautiful.

Living room. Zebra print everywhere! The apartment we will be settling into after this one is decked out in cheetah print. They love their prints. 

Awesome decorations and wallpaper

Bedroom and balcony

It isn't a bad apartment at all. It is right in the middle of all of the action and right by Max's office. Right before we went to bed, Max was checking out the balcony and taking pictures. All of a sudden I heard screeching  and a big huge bang. I ran to the balcony and basically witnessed the last little bit of a car accident. Max saw the whole thing. He told me that the car was coming down the street sideways and then flipped backwards and crashed into a cab parked by the sidewalk and another parked car. It was insane! Luckily no one was hurt. Here are some pictures of the accident right outside our apartment...

The car that flipped around is the white one on the left. The back end of it hit the taxi on the right which smashed the side of the taxi and hit it on the sidewalk. The car then flipped back around and hit the red parked car. 

 After all the excitement, we went to bed. It is fun living in the city because you see a bunch of crazy things happening. Well, that's it for now! Miss y'all!