Adventures in Russia

After class, we went to the Red Square, which is a place I have wanted to see my entire life. We saw St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin. This picture is outside the square. You're supposed to stand in the center of the circle and throw a coin and make a wish.

Usually there are Lenin and Stalin impersonators at the Red Square, but they weren't there on this particular day. We'll be back though so I'm sure we'll see them. I definitely plan to get a picture with them. This is Milica and I with a man dressed in traditional Russian clothing.

Speaking of Lenin - his tomb is at the Red Square. It was closed when we went, but we will definitely be back to see it and his really creepy preserved body!

St. Basil's cathedral was absolutely gorgeous. Words cannot really describe how amazing it is. It's smaller than it looks in pictures, but it's still definitely something to see at least once in your life!

After we saw the Red Square, we went to a mall in the square known as гум (Goom). It's one of the most famous malls in Russia and it is HUGE. I found a bookstore inside and bought Russian copies of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. 

(гум)

After we went to гум, we walked over to the famous Bolshoi theater, where we are going to see a ballet tomorrow night. It's a very beautiful  building!

Anddddd after that, we did some more walking. I felt like we walked for miles - everyone was exhausted. We all agree that by the time we come back from Russia, we're going to have lost a lot of weight and have some amazing leg muscles. The following picture is of us outside of the Russian senate building, which we came across on our walk.

Today, June 10th, we were at school from 4-10. We had lessons with Marina and learned a lot of new words and then had a conversation hour with two Russian students. One of the students then took the trolley with us back to the metro station near the university because we still can't really find our way on our own. At one point, the trolley stopped and there was a ton of shouting in the street. I thought someone had been hit by a car or something, but it turned out the trolley wasn't working. Eventually, they got it back in service, but had to use the emergency brake each time we braked instead of the regular brakes for whatever reason!

Eventually, we got back to the university and I went shopping at the school store and bought some postcards and shirts. We then headed back to the metro and took it all by ourselves to meet our teacher back at the Bolshoi theater. From there, we went to an underground shopping mall, the name of which I'm not sure, and did a little shopping. The dome in the following picture is part of the roof of the mall. 

This is a picture of the roof from the inside.

This is a picture of the Coffee House inside the mall.

Tomorrow for class we have a walking tour of Moscow, then we go to the Bolshoi to see a ballet. I can't wait!