Indian Summer

I’ve been hearing that the weather back home has been kind of icky lately. Not so in Moscow! Last weekend it was blustery, but since Monday it’s been sunny and warm every day. The temperatures have been in the high 60s or low 70s. So I’ve been trying to spend as much time outside because I know soon enough I won’t want to go outdoors. I’ve been walking to class, which is a 25-30 minute walk, even though I’ve also been lugging my laptop with me. We even walk back from the Metro station although there are buses there that drop us off basically at our door.

I took a really nice walk Friday with my classmate (and friend) Terri. We were in search of the elusive Sedmoi Kontinent supermarket, but we found something else really neat. We got off at Kropotkinskaya station, and literally standing outside the station was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. This is a cathedral that was originally built in the 19^th century, but Stalin demolished it because he wanted to erect a huge “Palace of the Soviets.” Basically, he wanted to build a really big building with a really big statue of Lenin on the top. Instead, it became the world’s largest swimming pool because they only got as far as the foundation. Then in the 1990s, they decided to rebuild this cathedral. It’s huge, made from white stone with huge gilded domes, and it’s just really neat. It also sits on the river, and there’s a little footbridge that crosses the river. This bridge is neat, because one can see the cathedral, the Kremlin, and a huge monument to Peter the Great from it. So this was a pleasant surprise in addition to finding the supermarket, where I found American salad dressing and Pringles!

Then Saturday, us ladies did our “traditional” (it’s only the second time we’ve done it, but we plan on making it a tradition) Saturday meal. Last weekend it was Caucasian food, and this weekend it was traditional Russian food. Anyway, after lunch, Alissa said she wanted to see this cathedral, so I took her to it. I was telling her about this traditional art of bell-ringing along the Volga, where one or two guys ring like 10-12 bells and they sound really pretty. Just as I finished telling her about it, the bells starting ringing! It was surreal- one of those “I can’t believe I’m really here” moments.