worldtour

France - Tramontane in Collioure

We took a TGV from Paris to Collioure. Western Europe has a system of fast trains that travel upto 300 kmph (190 mph) non-stop between major cities – nice trains – easy to reserve based on our Eurorail pass that we had bought in the US. It was a balmy 80 degree Fahrenheit when we got off the train in Perpignan! Collioure is in the deep southeast of France and is located along the Pyrenees range which divides Spain from France. The people here are Catalan and Collioure used to be the main city for the King of Majorca.

We stayed with David and Ellen Hall who are family friends from our days in Brusselles in the late 1970s. David very kindly picked us up at the Perpignan train station. Driving back to Collioure (about 30 minutes away), a number o f memories started coming back about when we had visited Collioure in the late 1980s – the deep blue Mediterranean waters, the house on the hill, the view of Collioure etc.

The Halls have a fantastic home on a hill overlooking Collioure. David cooked us some fantastic dinners which went very well with the local wines! And we had very nice breakfasts – baguettes, multi-grain bread, jam, butter, fruit etc. Having read recently that a healthy lifestyle increases lifespans by over 10 years, we strove to keep to that lifestyle – that lifestyle has four basic tenets
* a Mediterranean diet (fruit, vegetables, white meat, etc.)
* 4 glasses of wine a week
* 30 minutes of exercise a day
* no smoking.

Here's the view of Collioure:

We greatly exceeded the 4 glasses of wine per week and also the 30 minutes of exercise per day through walking! I believe I have discovered the secret to eating the terribly smelly French cheese that we get here – take a clothes pin and clip it to your nose so that you don´t smell anything! On our final night there, Andrew and his friend Delphine came over for dinner – it was wonderful to meet him after so many years (15 years, I believe)!

We went for a wonderful 15 k hike with Ellen which took us about 3 hours. The route included an old olive mill, two forts (Fort St Elme and Fort Dogummier) and a Christian refuge called the Hermitage which serves as a place for pilgrims to stay. Many who took the road to Santiago Composetella also came this way as was shown by the scallop shell in this photo.

We wound our way through a couple of wineries also – picking season is in full gear and we even saw various places where the pickers had dropped grapes. Ellen pointed out several plants that wereinteresting, including wild coriander, heather, wild berries, olives trees and more. We had to continually fight against the summer wind which is called the Tramontane – the wind is pretty constant and whips away all the moisture in the air.

There were weekend markets in Port Vendre and Collioure on Saturday and Sunday. Cheese, wine (Banyuls, Rousillon, Collioure), jams and bread were in full abundance. We bought an excellent fig & almond jam along with local cheese. The Saturday market closed down rapidly due to the Tramontane wind!

Collioure village itself has about 2500 inhabitants and consists of a chateau and a town with several small alleyways.

We drove into Spain one afternoon. With the integration of the EU, borders have become somewhat useless – nobody really checks passports and residents of Spain and France drive over into each others countries regularly to take advantage of better prices, sightseeing, seeing friends etc. With the same currency everywhere, it is somewhat tough to differentiate between the countries. We went to a fantastic memorial in Portbou (Catalunya) to Walter Benjamin, a German philosopher, who tragically commited suicide. The memorial had a steel tunnel drilled right through a mountain side at a 45 degree angle, ending in a glass door overlooking the sea. The philosopher was buried in the cemetery next door and the memorial aims to symbolize constant movement (the sea) into eternity. The monument is entitled "Passatges" in Catalan. Not only Benjamin's suicide is evoked here, but also the thousand of refugees crossing illegally, for decades, that boarder in both directions according to the various political conditions.

All-in-all, this was a wonderful weekend in Collioure and it was great to see the Halls!

France - Une baguette, s´il vous plait

It´s been over a week since we arrived in France and what have we done? Our daily routine has gone something like this: A cafe au lait, pain du chocolate and of course, the required baguette and jam. We´ve been lucky enough to stay with one of our dear friends Michelle Suchet, who has arguably one of the best views in Paris and a great location right on the Seine. We have gone to sleep every night watching the lights sparkling on the tower and have woken up to the sounds of peppy French pop wafting in the window from the apartments next door. We would like to truly thank Michelle for her wonderful hospitality.

We had dinner with Xavier and Lauren, friends from business school. It was wonderful to see them after so long!

Since we´ve both visited Paris separately, we wanted to make sure that this time, we got to see some different faces of Paris that neither of us had seen, as well as revisit those places that we were particularly fond of. Here are some highlights.

Weekend du Patremonie
It turnd out that the first two days we spent in Paris was the annual patremonie or heritage festival. On two days of the year, famous historical sites that are normally closed the rest of the year are opened and free to the public. These sites included Jacque Chirac´s house, the Ministry of Justice, the Carnavalet Museum, which details the art and history of Paris, as well as many beautiful gardens,
and some of the jewelery workshops in one of my favorite places, Plas Vendome where some of the most famous jewelers in Paris have a shop such as Boucheron, Cartier, Philip Patek and many others.

We saw hundreds of Parisians out and about standing in line to see the different sites or wandering in the private gardens. From talking to a few people, we got the impression that these opportunities were very popular because they gave folks a chance to explore integral parts of their city that weren´t usually open. Mostly everyone had a positive impression of this heritage weekend.

Le Maree
It´s a great little neighborhood with a bustling, vibrant shopping area. The shops here tend to boutiques and a little funkier and (I think) hipper than those on the Champs Elysees. The square itself is lined with restaurants and antique shops and is perfect for watching the world go by. I had to buy a pair of new sneakers, cause my old and trusty Adidas finally ripped beyond repair, so I found some lovely pink Nikes in a little shoe shop. Tres chic!

Festival on the Quai
Along with the heritage festival, there was also a wine festival on the quai near Notre Dame. So we walked down the quai steps surrounded by masses and masses of people. On the quai were booths from about twenty different wineries from different areas of France. For about 3 euros, we were able to buy a really great bottle of French wine, some wonderful ´Pyrenees tradicional´cheese and a baguette for a lunch facing Notre Dame.  Here's a video of kids playing on a hot summer day.

On Sundays, during the morning service, Gregorian Chants are performed at Notre Dame. The deep, chanting sent shivers down my spine. The singers were both quite young, but their voices soared and swept throughout the cathedral. It was amazing.
. Nonetheless, the experience was somewhat disturbed by the hundreds of tourists taking flash photos of the monks. 

Caroussel de Louvre
Every two years, there is an exposition at the Louvre of hundreds of amazing objet´s d´art, jewelry, paintings and sculptures from some of the most well known galleries in Europe (there were two from America.) We were told that this in its own right is just as amazing as the Louvre itself..the main difference being that at the exposition, the paintings, jewelery, and sculptures are for sale. Well, they were right. The amount and quality of items on display were simply amazing. Necklaces with shimmering diamonds, beautiful furniture including painted tables with intricate carved legs, marble busts and sculptures in bronze (we saw a 13th century Shiva and Parvati that cost 300,000 euros.) All you auction lovers, this is the place to be!

The Louvre
We´ve both been here before but went again just because one has to! Dev spent most of his time in the Egyptian section, trying to learn how to read hieroglyphics prior to our visit to Luxor later this year. He just finished reading a biography of Champollion, the archaeologist and linguist who brought back a number of artifacts from Egypt to the Louvre - he, along with Thomas Young, is credited with discovering how to read hieroglyphics and, importantly, how to pronounce them. The Rosetta Stone (not on display at the Louvre) has hieroglyphics right next to the text written in Greek and demotic. This is what allowed Champollion to understand how to pronounce the hieroglyphics. Having read the biography of Champollion, Dev is now reading a biography of Napoleon.

Musee d´Orsay
Although we´d both seen the Orsay before, we decided to go again. The Orsay, as you know, has the ¨rejects¨from the Louvre. These rejects turned out to be extremely popular and valuable, with all the Impressionists represented here, along with Art Nouveau furniture and objects d´art and much much more. After having seen the Art Nouveau in Prague, the A.N. exhibition here was really interesting and fabulous.

Institute of the Arab World
This was another fascinating museum that traces the history of the Arab-Islamic world from its origins to present day. There were beautiful examples of tapestries, pottery, carpets, and frescoes. What I liked best were the astrolabes
. It is basically used to mark how the sky looks at a specific place at a given time. There are various dials on the face of the astrolabe including date and time and various references to different parts of the sky. Middle Age Arab astronomers used the astrolabe to find the time during the day or night, finding the time of a celestial event such as sunrise or sunset and as a handy reference of celestial positions. The gold astrolabes developed for kings or their court astronomers were beautiful and delicate pieces of art, but functional as well. I also liked the moucharabiehs of which there are 240 on the entire facade of the Institute. They respond to the light intensity of the sun and slowly close and open to vary the light intensity inside the building. The design of the moucharabiehs were delicate tracings based on a design used in Moroccan mosques.

Opera de Paris
Continuing our theme of seeing the performing arts in each country, we went to the Opera. It was a visually stunning theatre with 5 levels of seats circling the stage. The performance was of an opera by Rossini entitled ¨Italian Girl in Algiers.¨

We went through an number of the other sites in Paris, including the Eiffel Tower, Montmartre (including the fabulous Sacre Coeur), Palais de Tokyo, Centre Pompidou and others. The night-time boatride of the Seine was wonderful although quite cold! We also went hunting for English-language bookstores, including the Shakespeare and a WH Smith store right next to the Louvre.

Some of our most interesting experiences:
- The hospitality of Michelle Suchet
- The ¨beautiful people¨ of Cafe Pompidou, on the roof of Centre Pompidou
- Gregorian chants on Sunday morning at Notre Dame
- The extremely fashionable people of Paris
- Seeing Indians everywhere selling chestnuts and umbrellas
- Tea at Angelina´s Tea Salon

Here's a couple of videos shot at Montmartre:

The cafe on top of Centre Pompidou:

The Stravinsky Fountain near Centre Pompidou:

Cesky Krumlov Castle

Cesky Krumlov is a fantastic town about three hours from Prague.  As must-do visit if you happen to be in the Czech Republic.

Here's a video of the view from the top of the castle.
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We ended up at a beer tavern which had some good authentic Czech lagers. Prost!

Czech Republic - Prague's Disco Cows

In the week we spent in Prague, we have had a great experience learning about its people, arts, food and culture. I'll write more about each later in this blog. But first and foremost are Prague's cows which seem to proliferate just about everywhere! Just like those of you in SF have seen the differently decorated hearts around the Embarcadero and the Financial District, from June through September, Prague is being covered in cows. We have seen all sorts of decorated cows and bulls, and have included some of the coolest. All of the cows are created and decorated by Czech artists, so on some you can find political slogans, some look suspiciously like the store they are in front of=think of a cow covered in the Louis Vuitton logo...and then there is the Swarovski Cow and the Mango Cow and the Diesel Cow. Might I suggest this exact solution for the cow problem in Delhi...:-) Turn the cows into a tourist attraction as opposed to an eye-sore and traffic hazard.


One of our favorites....the Disco-Cow (or Discow) as you see to the left!

People
Our sense of the people here was that they are very pleased to be out from behind the Iron Curtain although they are somewhat peeved that the USSR held back Czech economic progress compared to Western Europe. The people are very Western European, as opposed to Slavic. They seem to be very arts-oriented given the multitude of symphonies and plays and musicals going on around Prague in every church and hall and alley. On the negative side, we got a sense that the people here are distinctly less cosmopolitan than London or New York or Paris - they are (understandably) leery of the hordes of Brits, Germans and Italians that have descended on the town for cheap weekend junkets and are (not so understandably) somewhat leery of darker-skinned people. In fact, we were treated quite rudely at times by various people in shops, while trying to buy bus tickets, and other times. Hm, maybe if we spoke the language it might be better? In terms of the tourists, we saw large groups of British men walking around town every night, quite drunk and singing at the top of their voices. Given the history of the Sudetenland, I would not have guessed that the Germans would be here in large numbers but they are - after all, this is the home of the Pilsner and the highest per-capital beer drinking nation in the world. In fact, a number of the people here speak German and restaurant menus are in Czech, German and English. As opposed to Moscow, the menus here do not have cigarettes on them!

Arts
Two of the biggest draws here are black light theatre and classical music concerts. The Black Light shows are big crowd pullers here in Prague. The stage is lit only by blacklight - as a result, the only things that the audience can see are objects or people clad in white or other color costumes..all of which have funky designs and colors attached. They engage in a combination of mimery, modern dance, and ique Du Soliel type dancing. Actors covered in black cannot be seen at all and usually throw things out to the dancer in front or assist in lifting dancers so it looks like they are flying. This makes for some very interesting visual effects.

Classical music concerts are also huge. On every other streeet corner in the Old Town Square or Wenceslas Square, people are handing out leaflets for concerts. We saw the Prague Symphony which was performing works from Dvorak who was from Prague.

And then there is the Art Nouveau Decorations and the Bohemian Crystal of Prague. Some of the streets here are completely Art Nouveau (such as Prinzska, off of Starometska or Old Town Square) and the local A.N. artist - Muchas - is marketed all over the place. To the left is an apartment entrance that is Art Nouveau style.

History and Architecture
We walked and metro'd around Prague a lot to see the historic parts of Prague - Old Town Square (or Starometska), MalaStrana (near the river of the side of Prague Castle), Prague Castle, Josefov (Jewish quarter) etc. Prague is very easy to walk around although tourists have to be very careful of pickpockets which roam the streets in gangs! This is the clock tower that famously has a number of animated figurines.

Below is a photo of a building on the side of Old Town Square.

Here's a photo of Smruti in a park in Malastrana:

And here are the flying buttresses of Prague Castle cathedral along with fantastic stained-glass windows of the Cathedral.

Food
Three words.
Beer, goulash, and dumplings.
Again, for the resident veggie, Smruti ate a lot of pizza and salads. Most of the soups had meat bases. We even went to a Indian restaurant once--but unfortunately, no theplas were to be had. The bakeries were amazing-delicious chocolate cakes and tarts. Yum, but even Smruti could not live on whipped cream and chocolate alone *yeah right*.

All-in-all, a very nice experience in Prague - we would highly recommend it to you if you are considering visiting this part of the world!

Russia - PECTOPAHs and the Hermitage

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Around dinner time each day in St. Petersburg, we went around looking for a PECTOPAH (no a Pectopah is not a mythical creature from the Lord of the Rings). For those of you who are code-breakers, this is an easy one - in the Cyrillic script, P stands for R, and H stands for N. So PECTOPAH translates to RESTORAN. We kept ourselves amused reading these words in the metro stops and billboards and streetsigns. Speaking of restuarants, we found two great restaurants in St. Petersburg-neither of them Russian! The first was a Chinese restuarant called Kharbin- which makes the best eggplant clay pot this side of San Francisco. I'm not kidding- this was easily the best meal I had since leaving the U.S. The second was a sushi place. Note to travellers - when travelling, chinese food and sushi are hard to get wrong - you may have varyzing levels of quality with other cuisines.

St. Petersburg was a little less hectic than Moscow, but has a wonderful attraction in the Hermitage. Originally built by Catherine the Great as her private palace, it ranks next to the Louvre. For sheer breadth and quantity, the Hermitage has no equal. 1000+ rooms, each one filled with treasures of various kinds - paintings and sculptures by da Vinci, Michelangelo, Ruebens, Van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin, Matisse and many more. Compared to the Armoury at the Kremlin, this was an even higher level of bling-bling!

And to top it all off, each room in the Hermitage is a masterpiece in and of itself. From the Pavilion Hall with the intricately carved ceiling and the golden peacock clock to the Malachite Room which has 2 tons of malachite showcased in pillars and table tops to one of my favorites, the door handle that looks like an eagle's claw clutching a red glass ball, the attention to detail is astounding. I took so many photos, my camera ran out of battery power! The level of upkeep of the Hermitage is admirable given that the Germans destroyed parts of the Hermitage in the Siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) during WWII. And the whole thing burnt down in the 1800s and was rebuilt.

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Here are a bunch of photos, including a Michelangelo statue, a view of the many rooms etc. etc.


Parts of St Petersburg are also pretty run-down. Any street you walk on has huge awning doorways that lead to courtyards through a tunnel. As you peer through these doorways, you see broken masonry, weeds growing everywhere, broken down machines etc. You see windows all over the place that are broken with the rooms inside not having been inhabited for decades.

Our thoughts about St. Petersburg:
- Get ready for the cold! Even in early September, it was coooooold and rainy!
- Nobody speaks English - so bring your phrasebook and learn the script
- Spend 1 or 2 days at the Hermitage - this is the highlight of the city.
-We didn't get to do this-but take a boat cruise down the river. You'll get a scenic tour of the city and pass by some canals. Not for nothing is St. Petersburg called "Venice of the North!"

- Dev & Smruti

Russia - How do I get to the Bolshoi? Practice, practice, practice!

One of the great things about Russia is the super abundance of cultural offerings-there seems to be numerous art galleries, theatre and ballet companies putting on shows. And even though some of the companies may not be as world famous as the Bolshoi or the Mariinsky, the artists, dancers and actors are just as talented.

So before we came, we decided that we wanted to see a ballet at the Bolshoi in Moscow. Just like New York or San Francisco or London, there are numerous ticket kiosks scattered around the city with available tickets for that day plastered up on the window. So on Sunday afternoon, a fine warm day with the whole evening stretching out before us, we figured we might try our luck at getting Bolshoi tickets.

With Miroslav (Dev's friend) along for lingusistic support, we approached the booth.

Bolshoi tickets for tonight? Da Da! (Hand waving, and money exchanging hands- about $16 US for two tickets.)

Two fourth row tickets for the 7pm show for $16US- wow---that's pretty good!

What's the name of the ballet? Well- it actually isn't a ballet- it's an opera by Igor Stravinsky. (We couldn't figure out the name). And it's not at the Bolshoi- but next door at the New Theater.

But still—opera at the Bolshoi!

Feeling excited, we ran back to the hotel to change, not wanting to look like the typical tourist in jeans and sneakers.

Scene One: Finding our seats
So we get to the orchestra level door and start walking in confidently, only to be waved back by an usher. She seems to be pointing up. Waaayy up.

So fourth row seats are actually second balcony, fourth row seats. But in reality, they are pretty good seats... no obstructed view and the stage is to our right. We settle in and look around. The theatre seems to be about half full, with a mix of younger and older folks and families. We see some tour groups from Finland, France, and Japan.

Scene Two: Curtain Rises
As the orchestra starts to play, and the theatre goes dark, we realize that we still don't know the name of the play. Neither of us has picked up a program, so we sit back and hope for the best. As the singing starts, the actors walk on stage, gesticulating and setting the scene. After about 5 minutes, I look at Dev and whisper - “What language are they singing in?”. Listening intently, he whispers back - “No clue. Definitely not English and can't be Russian because they have Russian supertitles.” So we sit watching some people prance around in a garden, thinking that it must be German or Italian.


Scene Three – The Lightbulb Goes Off
15 minutes and counting. Still no clue and we are starting to doze off. Must have been the multiple blinis with sour cream right before the play. Those carbs can really do a number on you. Then the hero of the play, who we have figured out is named Tom starts singing again. Suddenly we hear, “Tom Rakkkkkkkkewwwwhhhhhhale! Djjjjyoooouuu aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr vonduurrrfoooll” and “Eye luuuuuuuub uuuuuuu”. We look at each other. Wait. The opera is in English???????

Scene Four – The Rest of the Play

At the intermission, we buy a program for “The Rake's Progress”. Thereafter, we're reduced to reading the lyrics by the light of Dev's cellphone to understand what's being said. Anyway, there's much melodrama and then there's some Faustian Devil-steal-your-soul stuff (the Devil's called Tom Shadow here) and then the opera ends, thankfully. We've caught up on a couple of hours of sleep as well. Now all y'all know that both Dev and I both enjoy theatre, so we decided to try again in St. Petersburg.

************

So now we're in St. Petersburg (another blog will talk about how we got there and other parts of Moscow and St. Petes). At the Hermitage museum, we found a ticket booth by accident - so we got tix to a ballet performance (finally!) of Swan Lake by the Saint-Petersburg Conservetoire Ballet Company. Amazing how cheap the tickets can be here - $15 per head for great seats in row 15. This time, we stayed in our day-clothes instead of dressing-up - after the Bolshoi experience, we were ready for another 2-hour nap, so we thought we might as well be comfortable.

The ballet, in 3 acts, was fantastic!

Some of the dancers were from the Mirinsky theatre which is the main ballet company here running from October through March. There were some great staqe effects, such as the lightning, the trees, and the swans swimming across the lake. The costumes were beautiful, as you can see in these photos - gorgeous colors and then the swans in pure white. We had a devil-like creature here also, named "Rothbat the Evil Magician". As in the Rake's Progress, good triumphed over evil, the devil was vanquished and love saved the day.

That's all for now.
-Smruti

Russia - Center of an Empire

We met up with Miroslav and his family in central Moscow.  It was fantastic to see them there! 

We spent a whole day at the Kremlin, inspired by the magnificent buildings and art and jewelry and more. If you're ever in Moscow, the Kremlin, including the Armoury with its Faberge eggs, costumes and carriages is a must-see!

Given the terrorist activities in Russia over the past few weeks, there was tighter security than usual. The authorities had mandated that tourists could go into the Kremlin only with a guide - of course, in the Wild Wild West of Moscow, this originally meant that guides were changes $100 per person until a few weeks ago. Then, the authorities stepped in and stopped the price-gouging. So we ended up paying $15 per person as part of a group of 10 people.

Napoleon stopped here when he came to Moscow - his army camped in the Kremlin square and made the fatal mistake of staying into the winter - after a couple of months of starvation and sorrounded by the remnants of the Russian army, Napoleon's army beat a hasty retreat, leaving over 1500 canons behind and just taking the horses with them - our guide said that the horses were taken more as food (i.e. to be eaten along the way) as opposed to a means of transportation!

The central square at the Kremlin is the only square in Europe to have over three churches, each one lovelier than the next. The Church of Assumption (where the tsars were crowned), the Cathedral of Annuniciation (where the tsars prayed every day) and the Church of the Archangel Michael (where most of the tsars are buried). The square also has the Queens' Church were the queens went to pray. Apparently, until recently, the Eastern Orthodox Church separated men and women in churches.

The spires are traditional Easter Orthodox golden spires, topped with a cross. The spires are all gold-plated! Here, the cross is not just two beams but also include a smaller beam at the bottom, one side of which points up and the other side points down - this signifies the two other men who were also crucified - one repented before dying and the other did not which is why one side points up and the other points down. This cross also has a nameplate at the top with Jesus' name on it which is what the Romans had put on the cross apparently when crucifying Jesus.

The interiors of the churches have beautiful icons of various Christian figures, many of them focused on Mary as opposed to Jesus Christ. We saw a number of priests, in Eastern Orthodox Christian garb, leaving the Cathedral of Assumption - our guide said that they were re-dedicating an icon that had been found recently. Very interesting site - the priests have long flowing beards and everybody (men and women) have their heads covered in tall dark hats.

After a lunch break, we headed off to the Armoury which houses all the jewelry, arms, costumes and carriages of the tsars. We left the Armory completely bling-blinged! There is so much here that it's impossible to comprehend all the diamonds and gold - they also have a number of Faberge eggs. The carriages were fantastic - from Catherine the Great etc. We also saw the costumes which are massively embroidered.

Nearby to the Kremlin is Red Square and St. Basils. St. Basils is a fantastic site with 8 domes, all in techni-color. Each dome commemorates a victory of Ivan the Terrible (over the Mongols etc.) Seems like it's out of somebody's multi-color dream. Red Square was nice as well - we counted over 5 marriage parties with couples there to take their photos with St Basils as the background. Apparently, the reason they come here is to cement their relationship with the city. They also usually take pictures at other historic spots in Moscow.

We also went to GUM which is the state department store. Prior to 1991, this was where all the long lines used to be when food supplies ran low. Now, GUM is a gleaming mall with fantastic stores and cafe. There are endless rows of stores with all the big brands. A note on the Russian glitterati - the past decade has seen certiain Muscovites become very rich - according to a friend, Moscow has the highest number of billionaires in the world (40!). Consequently, there is a certain set of people who drive around in Mercedes 500 cars with very expensive clothes and accessories. These are the folks who're driving prices through the roof. Be ready for a very expensive stay in Moscow!

All over Moscow, we found street-stalls selling Matrushka dolls - dolls inside dolls etc. Very typical Moscow souvenir! In addition to traditional Russian matrushkas, some of the dolls feature Harry Potter and Vladimir Putin - one a wizard of magic the other a master-manipulator of public opinion.
-Dev

Russia - One step back, two steps forward

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It's been a subdued day today. We started out from San Francisco this morning at 8:30am, through JFK to Moscow, landing here in Moscow at about noon. Perhaps it was the sudden dislocation from the comfort of Silicon Valley to the rainy environs of Moscow, but everything in Moscow seemed to involve a lot of effort - somewhat like taking one step back for every two steps forward.

I'll tell you more about that in a minute, but first would like to mention the terrorism-related events in Russia over the last week and continuing today... this is providing a somewhat tense background to our stay in Moscow although Muscovites seem to be going about their business without batting an eyelid.

Two weeks ago, two Tupolev planes flying out of Moscow were apparently blown up in mid-air by Chechen fighters. Last week, one of the subway stations in Moscow was blown up. A couple of days ago, Chechen fighters took 1200 people (mostly children) hostage during the first day of school .. and what we're hearing on the news is that the Russian army stormed in today and freed everybody.. in the melee, over 200 children have been killed and the toll is likely to rise. Terrible tragedy.

These events cast somewhat of a pall over our proceedings but I will relate our wanderings nonetheless...

Back to Moscow airport... Smruti sailed through immigration without any problems. I, on the other hand, apparently brought up some red flag on their computer system. For 45 minutes, there was complete silence from the immigration officers.. my passport went through various hands in various offices and then they finally let me through. Whenever I asked whether there was any problem, I got a stoic stare. OK, I didn't push it any more than that since I don't want to risk the Russian gulag :-)

Then, our taxi transfer to the hotel didn't show up. So we wandered around like aimless tourists (which we are, I admit), hounded by touts who wanted to charge us large sums of money for taking us to the hotel where we were staying. All the touts had a shifty look about them and get sidling up to us... quite funny actually and not much different from airports in any other developing country. We investigated taking the metro (1.5 hours travel time, apparently) but gave up on that. We finally succumbed to selling pressure from one of the touts and took off for the hotel in eastern Moscow.

The hotel seemed nice although registration at the hotel wasn't easy - they insisted on trying to give us 2 rooms when we only wanted one. After much explanation, they agreed to give us just one room.


If the video does not display properly
click here to upgrade to Flash 8Anyway, after that, things went more smoothly. We found our way to the Metro system - the Metro is fantastic in terms of its design as well as reach. Design-wise, there are a number of murals and the architecture of the stations is quite nice. Through the metro, we got to the Central Railway Office (to buy our St. Petersburg railway tix).

We also went to central Moscow to get some food and see the nightlife. We found a nice Georgian restaurant (Deoskuriya) which had great food (even vegetarian food which we had not expected to find much of in Russia - the joke being that the only veggie food in Russia is vodka). More on the food from Smruti in a later blog!

And we ended the night at a nice jazz club called "Le Club" hearing some Coltrane & Gilberto tunes.

Moscow is going to be one of our easier and more comfortable experiences so, as you can see, we're enjoying it while we can!

One other accomplishment today - we've learnt how to read Russian (mostly) in the Cyrillic alphabet. Getting around the metro has become easier because of this and we feel quite proud of this accomplishment! Dos bridanya... plasziba... ulitsa... etc.