The Travel Diaries: Moscow & St. Petersburg

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I'm going to pass on giving you the descriptions of the sites we saw (I can send you Wikipedia references, if you insist) and instead focus more on our experience of the trip. Why? Well, laziness for one. It's a lot of work to type in the immense history and meaning behind much of what we saw. But also (and I understand this may not speak well of me), what's below is a good portion of what I'm taking back with me from the trip. Churches tend to blur into one another after a certain period of time, but the overnight train ride as mentioned below? That will stay with me forever.

Soaking up info outside the KremlinMOSCOW

We were three days in Moscow which is two days too many. There just isn’t that much to see. The Kremlin, Red Square, Saint Basil's Cathedral, and the Armoury museum don’t take up more than a day. We saw a few extra sites, mainly because I think our tour guide was desperately looking for ways to fill the hours. Traffic in Moscow is intense and our hotel was a two-hour drive from Red Square, which meant we spent at least 4-6 hours on a bus each day.

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Smug Marrieds: Quiet Reflection

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We interrupt these travel diaries to bring you a Smug Married update. 

Last night, bedtime. I'm wired and wide awake. Blair is half-asleep before he even hits the pillow. He's already in bed by the time I finish brushing my teeth and join him. 

"So," I say, crawling into bed. "I'm not tired at all. What shall we talk about?" 

There is a moment of silence and then Blair says, "I thought it would be nice if we could both lie here and just do a quiet reflection on our love for one another."

Snort. The guy is slick, yes?

Cheers,

Dena

Travel Diaries: The Russian Eat & Run

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Since we're returned from Russia, friends keep asking two questions. "What did you eat?" and "Did you run?" 

Let's tackle the gastronomical aspect first. 

The food was bad. Very bad. Awful. Near the end of the trip when we finally were offered a salad it prompted Blair to comment that he missed my cooking. (Yes, the food was that bad.) 

Fruit was scarce and greens almost non-existent. Salt, however, was plentiful. I bloated up like a puffer fish. There was salt was in everything - the bread, the meat (so I was told), the soup, the vegetables, the scrambled eggs...

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