Per aspera ad astra

This week, the AH teachers had a bit of a reprieve from the clutches of ESL. Unfortunately, five days isn’t long enough to go anywhere particularly exciting on a teacher’s budget, so some teachers went to Petersburg and some stayed in Vladimir to be productive and/or sick. Since I hate Petersburg almost as much as I hate being productive/sick, Moscow was the destination of choice for this fall break.

As the average Moscow hotel runs around $100 a night, we opted for a hostel, which ended up being an excellent choice. Sweet Moscow is located on Stariy Arbat, which is essentially a long street of overpriced restaurants (we were across from Hard Rock Cafe) and souvenir shops. It’s centrally located and, hey, our hostel only cost $25 a night, which by Moscow standards is a steal.

Average rooms at the hostel have 6-8 beds; I shared my sleeping space with a group of young Germans, a guy from Peru, and a younger guy from Sweden (who is incidentally coming to Vladimir tomorrow on the Golden Ring trip). The hostel was incredibly clean and the manager was super friendly- if you’re planning to venture into the second best city in the world anytime soon, I’d recommend staying here.

I have what some people might call an ‘addiction’ to matryoshka dolls (see above). Fortunately, I am too poor to buy anything that I saw in the various shop windows along Stariy Arbat.

The first day in Moscow was relatively uneventful and consisted of massive amounts of wandering around. For our first meal, I demanded a stop at Teremok. For those not totally obsessed with Moscow, Teremoks are small stands that sell various types of blini. My personal favorites include the ham & cheese, as well as the с сгущёным молоком (sweetened condensed milk). They’re a tasty Russian alternative to McDonalds, at about the same price.

After wandering through the cold some more for a while, we returned to the hostel for a short nap. I sifted through the free English newspaper eXile at the hostel and after reading several restaurant reviews, decided we needed to get out for a decent meal. What followed was one of the greatest culinary experiences of my life.

The place we went to was called La Hacienda (but since Russian doesn’t have an “h” equivalent, it’s technically La Gacienda), and it’s by far the best Mexican food in all of Russia. As recommended by eXile, we ordered the pico de gallo (which was free since it was our first time!) and I got a strawberry margarita (see below).

After this amazing beginning, I ordered a chicken burrito with guacamole, which was also incredible. The entire experience was awesome. Our waitress spoke English and Russian, but unlike most, was willing to speak Russian with us. The restaurant itself was well-decorated, and my margarita rocked. As evidenced by the next picture, it was a весёлый evening. (In Russian sign language, this is the sign for весёлый, which means happy in English)

Though I’d been to Moscow twice already, you can’t ever get enough of Красная Площадь, so we spent a good amount of time there on Monday. Here’s a pretty typical picture of the lovely onion-domes of Saint Basil’s.

Yesterday was the holiday commemorating the October Revolution (which Putin decided to throw out last year) and some commies are still holding strong. The square was entirely closed off to the public, but there was a small procession of communists allowed to go pay their respects to Lenin on Monday.

On a recommendation from Lukas the Swede, we went to the Novodevichy Cemetery yesterday. It was basically the hip place to be buried during the Soviet Union. Here’s a few of my favorite dead people…

Nikita Khrushchev- (Никита Хрущёв)- former leader of the CCCP, post-Stalin. There’s a picture of him in the classroom that I teach in 75% of the time, so this was a special moment.

Yuri Nikulin (Юрий Никулин)- famous Soviet actor/clown

Nikolai Gogol (Николай Гоголь)- one of the greatest Russian writers (and one of the few who doesn’t write about love and nature all of the time)

There were a bunch of really neat graves with beautiful sculptures/artwork and then there were a few totally random markers, like this poor chap who will be forever commemorated with a hole in the ground.

A view from outside Novodevichy.

Before we left, we stopped at a genuine American-style mall to get some more tasty Teremok. Before we left, I snapped this shot. I actually think I like ‘travelator’ better than ‘escalator’. It’s got much more of a ring to it.