This is the view I got of St. Basil’s and the Kermlin in Moscow, right after arriving. Well first after arriving we had to walk past the scary soldiers with machine guns (I really appreciate the US Government not putting machine guns in our airports). Then we had to wait for the the 20 odd 75lb suitcases to come through the bagage check, and put them into a van. I seem to recall at this point my dad noticed the destroyed printer from the last post, and was ushered into a small smokey windowless office to talk about possible remedies. I seem to recall they wanted to give us roubles. Which at the time were worth 1/6 of a dollar. That’s not too bad except you couldn’t really find anyone to change your roubles to dollars. The other way around was easy. But we needed a replacement printer from the United States where they don’t take roubles so there was a protracted negotiation that went on for quite a while before my dad got the money for the new printer from Pan Am.
But back to the picture. You see, being the consumate tourist I am. I fell asleep in the van, woke up long enough to notice that the van had stopped and that there was “that building from those pictures”, and drifted back off to sleep. Apparently everyone else went to St. Basil’s and took pictures in Red Square, and went to GUM, which is apparently this amazingly big department store/mall thing near the Kremlin. I mostly slept. Never to fear though, I did eventually go into St. Basil’s on a subsequent trip to Moscow (to go anywhere in the Soviet Union you had to either go through Moscow or St. Petersburg). Oddly enough it was very small and dark inside, and was reminiscent of a cave made out of wood. You would not guess from the bright cheerful exterior that the inside looks like a fairy tale woodcutting. Next stop Domodedovo airport! Well, unless I go back and talk about the Baptists we stayed with in Lancaster, PA. Their last name was Booze. They were Baptists.

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Comments

Tim

2006-03-21T02:24:10.000Z

He’s KGB. I’m joking, but at the same time I’m probably telling the truth.

Tara

2006-03-22T22:44:12.000Z

Well if that don’t beat all! That’s got to be one of the funniest coincidences that I’ve heard of in a good long while. I keep thinking about Baptists named Booze at all sorts of inappropriate times.