Me: I’ll take the vegetable platter please.
Me: Mmmm, these are tasty vegetables. Wait a minute … that’s not a vegetable.Russian Lesson Learned: Shrimp are vegetables.
United has a direct flight from Dulles to Domodedovo. It's 10 hours which is about 3 hours beyond my tolerance for sitting in economy. I had frequent flyer miles to burn so I upgraded to business class for a mere 10,000 miles. The Supershuttle picked me up at 1:30pm for my 5pm flight. Even though my organization will pay for a taxi, I always take the Supershuttle because I never know what kind of adventure it will take me on. The last Supershuttle driver got lost in Alexandria and refused to listen to the directions of the (increasingly annoyed) Alexandria native in the backseat. What should have been a 30 minute trip turned into about 1hr15min. This trip to Dulles was uneventful. There were only 2 passengers and I was the second picked up, so it was a straight shot from my hotel to the airport. Check-in had its typical problems. The check-in kiosk wasn't printing tickets and wouldn't recognize I had 2 bags. Fairly tame I guess as far a check-in problems. It took a few minutes to sort all that out and I was finally on my way to the Red Carpet Club (an additional perk of a business class ticket). Since I had about 2 hours to kill before boarding I took at seat in the Club, grabbed a free beer and watched the World Cup Germany v Spain game.
The business class section of the flight was only about 25% full. The seat next to me was free – which was convenient as my entertainment system was not working. On-demand movies is the main perk of business class so this would have been a disaster had I not been able to switch seats. My last international flight was in economy and I was stuck watching Twilight. The acting was so bad I was nearly read to slit my wrists by the end of it. This flight would have no such issues. I sat down, told the flight attendant to keep the drinks coming, and prepared for 10 hours of boring. I managed to get in Date Night and Invictus before grabbing a nap. My wife will take about ¼ pill of Uni-som sometimes to help her sleep. I took 2 pills around the end of Invictus and, as far as I can tell, had no effect on me.
Upon arrival and Domodedovo I quickly passed through the passport control and met my sponsor on the other side. He took me back to our apartment building, gave me the keys and a quick tour of the building. He left me to my own devices for the afternoon and made plans to meet up again for dinner.
My image of Russian apartments is the stereotypical concrete communist apartment block. In fact, most housing in Moscow is like this. Our building, however, is new construction and breaks the mold. It's only a few years old and has a modern exterior. It is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath on the 8th floor. It probably has about 1400 sq ft. of living space. The kitchen/dining/living room is an open layout. The master bedroom is enormous. The queen-size bed takes up only a small part of the room. There is a large built-in wardrobe and I moved in a portable IKEA wardrobe from the second bedroom. I figure I can take the IKEA wardrobe and a couple drawers in the dresser and Katie can use everything else. For the first time in a long time I have a washer and dryer in the apartment, although the washer is in the second bathroom and the dryer is in the kitchen. A little odd, but I can't complain too much. The master bath has a tub while the second has a shower. Both have heated towel racks and floors. The kitchen also has a heated floor which can be turned on or off. There is a built-in air conditioner in the living room and a roll-around a/c in the master bedroom. The apartment also has an enclosed porch which seems to be most useful as a sunroom or storage. The apartment came furnished with dressers, tables, sofa, etc. The second bedroom is configured as an office with a bookshelf and desk. The apartment has hardwood floors throughout (except the heated tile in the kitchen and bathrooms). The east and south side of the apartment has large windows. The middle window opens on each section, but there aren't any screens. The view out either side isn't terribly interesting – basically lots of concrete apartment blocks. The apartment comes with basic cable TV (about 12 working stations and another 10 or so where the sound and/or screen is screwed up). All the foreign stations (e.g. BBC) don't work but the Russian stations come in fine.
After unpacking my belongings I took a walk around the area to survey my new home. There are a couple small grocery stores within a 5 minute walk – one of them is open 24 hours. I'm not sure why I would need to go to the grocery store at 3am, but I I do there are options. Of course the ubiquitous McDonald's is only a couple blocks away. There is also a Sbarro nearby. I haven't checked to see if either has free wifi, but that would probably be the only reason to go. There is a big statue of Lenin only a block from our apartment. The apartment is conveniently located between two metro stops – about a 5 minute walk to either one (Oktabrskaya and Dobryninskaya). Both stops are on the circle line which means I can easily get pretty much anywhere in Moscow as the circle line crosses all other lines. All the major train stations (to cities outside Moscow) are on the circle line. The subway system in Moscow is huge but incredibly efficient. Trains come every 90 seconds. There is no “time until next train” like in DC, only a “time since last train” and I have yet to wait more than a couple minutes.
On Saturday I walked around the center of the city. I started at Red Square, walked down to Christ the Saviour church then up to Old Arbat – a pedestrian street about ½ mile long. If you want to buy souvenirs – Old Arbat is the place to do it. There are a large number of shops selling all kinds of crap (my term, not theirs). It was a hot day – probably close to 90 degrees. I was hoping to escape the heat of DC, but apparently it followed me to Moscow. Red Square was quite crowded. After a few hours of walking around I decided I had had enough of the heat. I came back to my apartment and took a nap. After my nap and a delicious dinner of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, I sat down to watch the Uruguay v Germany game – in Russian. The game started at 10:30pm local time and the sun was just going down. It's an odd experience to wake up with the sun up and go to bed with the sun still up.
Sunday I slept until about noon then was ready to get back out and explore my new city. I found that a good way to meet new people was to join the local Hash House Harriers running club. For those who don't know, the Hash House Harriers are a drinking club with a running problem. In Moscow they meet every Sunday at 2pm then head out to the run site via the metro. I show up at 2pm and who did I see but one of the guys I ran with in Bulgaria! It had been 4 years but we both recognized each other. The expat world is pretty small. The Hash in Moscow is pretty diverse – there are Americans, Serbians, Russians, Canadians, Brits and the Swede I knew from Bulgaria. The run was through Victory Park – a famous Moscow park memorializing World War 2 (or the Great Patriotic War). Another good reason to run with the Hash is that you get to see different parts of the city. This Hash, which is typical of others I've been on, was about 15% pre-run socializing, 35% running, and 50% drinking and socializing after the run. It was about 6pm before the Hash ended. I made plans with some of the Hashers to meet up at a local bar to watch the World Cup final later that night. We met up at an outdoor bar called “Art Garbage” (yes, I also think that is an odd name for a bar). Anyway, we got there early to grab a seat. Unfortunately the game went long and I had to leave before it ended because the Metro closes at 1am. The last thing I wanted to do is get stuck in the center of Moscow when I barely knew how to get around the city. By the time I got home the game has already ended. Oh well.
People started gathering early in front of the Netherlands Carillon for the DC 4th of July fireworks. I arrived around 6:30pm and met up with Patrick and Cassandra. Sundown wasn't until around 9pm so we killed some by playing Scrabble. Cassandra and Patrick are what I would call "Scrabble Grand Masters". I am what I would call a "Scrabble Trainee". Needless to say, the score was a bit lopsided. I guess all those hours of getting my ass kicked by iPhone Scrabble really didn't help improve my skills. Still, it was a good way to kill some time. A few others joined later so we had a decent group by the time the fireworks started. It was a good show, but I think I've got my fill of fireworks for a few years (unless, of course, I'm the one shooting them off).
The Lyford Family vacation this year was to NYC. My parents, sister, brother-in-law took the train down from Massachusetts and Katie and I took the bus up from Arlington, VA. There are multiple bus services that service the DC-NYC route, but I decided on Vamoose. I picked this bus for multiple reasons:
1) I like the name
2) It’s significantly cheaper than Amtrak
3) It starts only 3 blocks from my office
The last one is probably the most important because I was leaving straight from work. As a teacher, Katie was able to head home right after school and take the metro to Rosslyn to catch the bus.
Our first 45 minutes with Vamoose was not the most pleasant. I initially decided something was wrong when the bus turned around and headed back to Arlington. I figured there was either a bus tour of DC included in the price which I was unaware of, or we were heading back to where we started. In DC there are several Vamoose employees that help load bags, check people in, etc. but do not ride the bus. One of these individuals left his bag on the bus. The bus had to turn around and give him his bag. 45 minutes … wasted.
We made it up to NYC in a little over 5 hours. The bus stopped at Penn Station and we caught a cab from there to our hotel – the San Carlos. My parents and sister arrived only an hour or so before us. As it was late we decided to all call it a night and hit the town Saturday morning.
We started Saturday morning at the Folk Art Museum. It wasn’t big, but I was impressed by the artwork. After the Museum we walked over to the theatre district where my parents bought tickets to see Jersey Boys for that evening. The rest of us already had tickets for Wicked, but my mother had already seen it so wanted something different.
After that we took a walk up to Central Park. We spend some time playing in a playground clearly marked for children only. Somehow all of us missed the signs until we left. It did seem odd that we were older than everyone by at least 20 years. We continued our trek past the Sheep Meadow where there were several moderately talented bands performing around the “Quiet Area” signs. We continued on until we arrived at the Guggenheim Museum. I had been to the Guggenheim before, but it had been about 10 years so most of the artwork was new. My favorite “piece” was a night-vision video showing a boy obsessively biting his nails in the dark. Sometimes I think I’m just not smart enough to understand art. Upon leaving the Guggenheim we feasted on some sorbet and snow cones and made our way back to the hotel.
For dinner on Saturday we feasted at Dos Caminos. It is a Mexican chain, but quite good – especially for a chain. My brother-in-law has coeliac disease which can sometimes make eating out a bit of an ordeal. Amazingly, the waiter was familiar with the disease and knew exactly which foods had gluten in them. I don’t often inquire about gluten free food, but rarely are the wait staff so knowledgeable on the subject. So, for all you gluten free folks out there – I recommend Dos Caminos.
Saturday night we all headed to the theatre. Katie, Jen Jeff and myself all went to Wicked while my parents split off an headed to Jersey Boys. Our seats were excellent. We were right in the middle about 16 rows back. The show was sold out and the crowd was enthusiastic which made it fun. After the show we altered our route home to pass through Times Square. Times Square is even more of a zoo than I remember. It was fun for the 10 minutes we spent there. Any more than that and the lighted billboards might send you into epileptic seizures.
Sunday morning we headed out to Chelsea to see a famous piece of landscape architecture (as I found out later from a group of professional landscape architects) – the High Line. The High Line was previously an elevated rail line that has been converted into an elevated park (well, partially converted, they’re still working on it). The completed section is about 1.5 miles long and offers some nice views. It also passes by Chelsea Market where we all had lunch.
After lunch we meandered over to Washington Square where Katie played in the water fountain – thus increasing the average age of those playing in the fountain by a factor of 10. After a few minutes in Washington Sq., we took the subway down to Battery Park for 30 minutes of sightseeing before heading up to Rockefeller Center for our tour of NBC Studios. Both Katie and I had already gone on the tour, but it had been quite a while – 10 years for Katie and about 17 for me. I didn’t remember too much of my tour in 1993(ish) other than I got to see Lenny Kravitz rehearsing as our tour was Saturday afternoon before a SNL show. It was sad to see Conan O’Brian’s studio has already been redone for Dr. Oz (whoever the heck that is).
Our final event was dinner at The View restaurant on top of the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. The restaurant rotates so guests get a nice panoramic view of the city. It makes one full rotation every hour so we were able to see the full view twice during our dinner. We made another trek through Times Square on our way back to the hotel.
Monday morning we took a cab back to Penn Station to catch our bus back to DC – a 4 hour (exactly) trip.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.Katie and I visited the G40 art summit - mainly because it was right across the street from us. The exhibit took up 5 floor in a office building. There was definintely some interesting art. A couple of my favorites are in the slideshow below.
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I finally decided to check out the mid-atlantic ski scene. It’s not great, but it was better than I expected. I went out to Whitetail Mountain in Pennsylvania (about 1.5 hours away from DC) with a few friends for a full day of skiing. I spent most of the day on the black diamond trails (although the mid-atlantic black is more like a Colorado blue). There was, however, a long and steep mogul trail that kicked my ass.
Today – President’s Day – we decided to visit Mount Vernon. We decided on today because it is the one day all year that admission is free. We got there right at opening time to be sure to beat most of the crowds (and be able to get a good parking spot). Despite this it was still busy, but less so than a summer day I imagine. Both Katie and I have been to Mount Vernon, but it had been a while for both of us. All I remember of the grounds was the large lawn in front of the house (currently buried under 2 feet of snow). As it was George Washington’s birthday he was present for the event. Apparently there was a “surprise” birthday party for him taking place at 1:30pm which we didn’t bother staying around for. I did get a word in to him – I said, “Hey George, you’re looking good for your age!” He gave me a glare and responded, “Not even my wife calls me George.” Doh!
