Sunday in the Park

Another day in Moscow.

Today i had this brilliant plan to take the metro to Izmailovsky Park where there was supposed to be a quaint market selling handcrafted items. We arrived and found the market, which was a sprawling flea market of sorts which i can best liken to a cross between the Hialeah Ghetto market (in Miami), the Richmond Night Market and Canal Street in New York....for those of you who still can't get a visual: it was tents and enclosures filling maybe a football field selling clothing and housewares, toys, food and any other item you could imagine. It was extremely crowded and from what we could tell we were the only non-Russians there. It was not at all what i was expecting, but it was interesting to see where many Russians seem to do their shopping.

After fleeing that scene we went back "downtown" to the Kremlin, where we got an espresso and ice cream (when in Moscow...) and sat outside at a cafe on a promenade in the sun. The weather today was FANTASTIC. Snow? What snow? While sitting outside i was so warm i removed my jacket and scarf. Heaven.

After that we went to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts which was especially crowded due to a recently opened Modigliani exhibit. I was a bit disappointed with the museum, as the impressionist works i had been keen to see were in closed wings. There were a few rooms, however, of lovely Flemish and Dutch paintings from the 17th Century.

We then walked back to Ulitsa Arbat for dinner at the same cafe we ate at last night. I had the most exquisite chocolate dessert. Now we are back at the hostel. Yesterday it was filled with Germans, today it is literally crawling with children; the kind that stand too close and stare at you....in fact, they are doing it now....creepy.

Tomorrow is our final day in Moscow. We catch the midnight train to St. Petersburg tomorrow night.

Good night.

d & b