Love and Long Walks

This is, unfortunately, the first of many solo Moscow experience blogs for me. Hubs is out in Siberia this week. Honeymoon's over, I guess, and after four months of not leaving each other's sight, I thought the best approach would be to cram that first day full of activity.

Hubs and I had a great weekend! Met a ton of expats and even experienced some nightlife with a short pub crawl Saturday night. The purpose of all the festivities was to celebrate the book launch for Phoebe Taplin, who writes a series of books called "Moscow Walks". She has routed some of the most magnificent places in the City, through woods, churches, and urban locations, most beginning and ending at the cafe, which is my favorite part of the walk.

So, for the first time in my life, I was sad and lonely, and actually did something to remedy this instead of sit around the apartment with a bucket of fried chicken or something. (don't think it wasn't a hard decision, we do have a KFC right up the road...) I signed up for the walk on Monday, brave as brave can be.

By now, the Metro is way too easy. I mastered that, like, yesterday, but it feels like longer. I'll post a picture of the Metro map and y'all can see how difficult it can be, but to give you an idea, all of the stops are written in cyrillic, the Russian alphabet. No english. None. I got the the stop, easy peasy, and was even on time. Very impressive for me. We started off around 10:30am and headed west through a very large park.

Here's the thing. The snow is just now starting to melt. Which means, it's really wet outside. Which means there is mud EVERYWHERE. And it's pretty hard to maneuver around, especially a group of a dozen or so ladies of all ages, shapes and sizes. I'll definitely have to walk this trail again considering my eyes never left a foot or so ahead of my feet...

But I finally got to walk into a church (a few actually)and it is amazing. It literally takes your breath away, not only for its beauty but you actually feel the profound respect that the people inside have for their religion. It's pretty unnerving, really. I'm a good person, but if ever I felt like lightning would strike me dead somewhere, it would be there. I still probably wouldn't want to walk in with certain people... Women must cover their head, usually with a scarf (I only had a trendy cap, but it apparently works too, because no babushkas chased me out) and usually they must wear long skirts or dresses as well, but most churches are pretty relaxed these days. Beautiful icon paintings cover every inch of the wall, all the way up to the top of the cathedral and bells rang frequently from the tower for Easter Week. (bells are not rung by machines, either, creating a beautiful though slightly off-rhythm sound) One church we went to, we were met at the entrance gate by a passionate babushka, so proud of her church, and sharing with us all the details of their fine gold and icon paintings.

We continued our treck through the wilderness, or, from my view, the mudland, and it was a little rough. By the time we ended the first leg of our hike, it was 1:00pm, almost three hours of hiking through mud and fancy cathedrals. Quite a combo. I was in good spirits, and was getting to know my travel partners much better. They way "out-story" me, but in a good way. And no one is snobby. I don't know why, but I kind of expected people to be. But we're all just us. Real people who are really far away from family, friends and a good margarita. (although, I'm sure my new friends could find a good margarita, even here in Moscow...)

And I got to eat some street food! Anthony Bourdain has made me always want to try street food in any foreign country, so I was ecstatic to finally try it! It was almost like a burrito and it was so good! Some kind of meat, with sour cream, dill (weird), raw shredded cabbage, an unknown red sauce that wasn't ketchup or anything spicy all wrapped in a tortilla! A tortilla!! Home, sweet home!

Thank God for the quick nourishment because we had another two hours of heavy hiking through the mud and slush to get through. I thought my boots had done alright the first leg of the trip, but by the time we were halfway through the second, I was just happy they were on my feet. For the record, Uggs can be rinsed off and will survive. But every muddy, sticky, and yes, even hot moment was totally worth it. To see the city that we now call home, to meet and really get to know some fantastic women here and the sweet, sweet americana coffee I got as soon as we were out of the forest were just priceless.

Cheers to the things and people who feel like home and, of course, to those who truly are, near and far.