First off, I am apologizing for neglecting the blog. This week was just insane with homework. A lot of my days consisted of homework from morning until late afternoon/night. I am sure you can understand. Although a lot of my time was given to my homework and responsibilities, I did find time to have fun with Max, so this week is still worth the read (Day 21, 22, & 23 will come soon after this post) ;) Enjoy!
Day 18 was Tuesday. It was mostly an ordinary day. We threw old bananas off our balcony to watch it splat onto the roof of the restaurant next door and, of course, to feed the pigeons. I sat and observed who I now call "the pigeon lady" feed the birds crumbs and chunks of bread every five minutes. She would chuck the chunks of bread at them, which I found rather entertaining and funny. And I tried to make guacamole like Darcy (my mother in law, who is an excellent guacamole maker) and it just was not the same. I told her that she needs to send over some of her guacamole lovin', I am missing it badly! Soon enough I will be reunited with delicious guacamole and my awesome in-laws of course! I don't just miss the guacamole! But, I digress... The many shots of "Pigeon Lady"...
For the rest of my day, I worked on my huge load of homework. A few hours after Max got home, he and I had the opportunity to go out to watch the UEFA soccer champions league game on the big screen. We love us some soccer. We both got all fancy, I even put my hair up in a fun bun, and we hit the streets to walk to a nearby bar playing the game.
The teams that were playing were Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, a Spanish team vs. a German team. We walked into the bar and were seated right by the projector showing the game. As we watched the game we were both pained by Real Madrid's poor passing and lack of strategy; they are usually pretty awesome at both of those things. We also realized that we were in a German bar mainly because we were the only few cheering for the Spaniards. As the game continued on, we ordered a salad to share. We played it somewhat safe and ordered the chef's salad...you know, very basic things like cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, eggs, bacon...etc. When we got the salad, this is what we got.
Definitely not what we expected. The lettuce was hidden under the bacon and cheese, all of the other vegetables were randomly placed around the dish, and there was no dressing. Yummy...On a positive note, we got our servings of vegetables in!
Anyway, back to the game...In case this is interesting to you, Real Madrid needed to score 3 points and not let Germany score any in order to proceed in the tournament. Real Madrid did not score their first goal until the second half of the game. Then, they scored another shortly after. It got really intense. Max and I stood up to cheer for the second goal. Everyone looked at us like, "Sit down foo's!" but we didn't much care. With only a few minutes left, they needed to score one more goal. I would really love to tell you that they did because they did....n't. Very sad and disappointing, but we had another game on Wednesday to look forward to. Barcelona vs. Bayern Munich
. We left the bar, walked home, and immediately went to sleep at 2am.
Day 19 was Wednesday. No fun Wednesday is what I will call it. I worked on homework all. day. long. It was never-ending. And on top of it Max had the day off because of holiday's over here in Russia. It was torture for us both. Too add the cherry on top, during Max's free time, he added snap chat onto his phone and pretended to be some creepy guy by the name of pensioner (defined as a retiree) and send me odd snap chats. I was freaking out. He is so mean, but in the end, it was kind of a funny prank.
He better not do it again, or else he will be sleeping on the baby giraffe couch. After a few hours of boredom, I told Max to get out while I finished some more homework. When he came back, we went out to the German bar again to watch Barcelona play Bayern Munich. It was the same situation for them. Barcelona had to score 4 goals and not allow Bayern to score any in order to move on in the tournament. Another disappointment, Bayern Munich won 4-0. We went home, but this time our walk was a little bit more interesting. We had to cross the street to get to our apartment building, but one thing to keep in mind is that you cross the street here underground sometimes. When we walked through the tunnel, we passed by two sleepy homeless men. It was quite cozy in that tunnel if you ask me. It makes a pretty good home. Max was brave enough to take a picture...
Day 20 was Thursday. Thursday was no homework day. I designated the whole day to going out with Max. Good idea? I think so! We took the metro to area right by the red square and walked around for a bit. Here is what we saw before we actually got to the red square...
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| Bolshoi Theater- Famous Theater in Russia |
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| Duma- Russian Parliament |
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| This is a hotel with an interesting background. Stalin ordered a group of architects to design a hotel for him. The catch was that only one design would be chosen, meaning one person would win and the other's, the losers, would be killed. One night while Stalin was drunk, he picked and signed for a design that he approved, but while doing so accidentally signed two. He told the group, "Well, I guess there will be two winners," and the others died. When they created the hotel, it was two very different designs combined into one. It was pretty funky looking. Recently, they demolished the hotel and rebuilt it. This picture is of the new hotel. |
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| Cool looking shopping center. |
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| Cool looking mural. |
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| Old KGB building, now called the Lubyanka Building |
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| This Metro station (Lubyanka station) right across from the old KGB building was bombed in 2010 by two Chechnya women. About 40 people died and it has been closed ever since. |
When we got to the red square, we went into a famous shopping mall called GUM nearby. It is a shopping mall filled with really expensive shops like Louis Vuitton and Burberry. It was beautiful. Take a look...
After we left the mall, we walked around the red square and ran into Lenin and Stalin. Oh, hey guys!
We also ran into aaaaa...ummm...I have NO idea. Take a look and tell me if you know who or what this is...
Then, we walked towards the Kremlin to check out the Russian armory and here was our walk there...
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| Statue of Statue of Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Most decorated general in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union. |
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| Tomb of the unknown soldier |
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| Kiev- Max's mission |
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| Memorial obelisk to the revolutionaries |
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| We aren't quite sure what this is, but we concluded that it is a wishing well. Everyone just put their coins (money) in the wall. |
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| And others dug for and stole the coins (money). |
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| They don't have red lights here, they just spray paint the lights red. haha |
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| Blue pants and blue hair. I have also seen a girl with bright green hair and a bright green purse. People like to match their hair to an accessory here. |
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Notice anything wrong with this picture?
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After we walked around for a bit, we sat down on the granite by one of the metro stations next to the street and just watched the cars go by. It was fun and we saw a bunch of awesome cars. While we were sitting, a concerned hippie in his 40's stopped and took the time to tell us about the dangers of sitting on a cold stone surface. He explained the internal damage we would have to our kidneys and how it was not worth the expensive medical bills we have in today's world. (People are very superstitious here) This, of course, did not come from him, but "renowned German doctors" and modern medicine. He continued to repeat himself several times adding that it was best to wait for the heat of summer before sitting on such a surface, but for now it remained much too cold. He then walked away just as quickly as he came with his long hair, over ear headphones, tie-dyed shirt and long hanging chains around his pants. Very nice and courteous man overall. I wish him well.
When we had our fill of cars, we walked home, ate dinner, and went to bed. We were both super tired from all of the adventures.
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