Cutting it short..

Moving back to the U.S.

I moved to Moscow with the intention of living here for a couple of years. Learning the language, finding a decent job in Public Health and starting a life with V.
And I am not sorry at all that I am giving it up and moving back to the U.S. (although I still plan on doing listed things in the US....)

I bought my ticket last night! My last ticket (for a long while) between Moscow and the U.S.
It's bittersweet, but I feel relieved with the plans.

I'm not sure what to do with the blog. I'll probably do 2 or 3 more updates before I leave. And 1 after a week or so to recollect and sum up my thoughts. Maybe a few months after I will delete it.
I hope that people traveling to Moscow find this blog and get some use out of it, but I don't think many do. So once my friends/family have read it, I will toss it.

For now, I will share some random photos I have taken around Moscow.


Metro train turned art gallery:





Amateur football games in the sleeper cities:



Interesting stuff in the sleeper city:



Local outdoor market Autumn celebration concert:


^where I buy my produce every weekend

At our metro:


I love walking through the city and stumbling upon beautiful buildings:


French Embassy:

The U.S. Election and Russia

ТВ Центр.




The election results came in around 3 AM to 8 AM Moscow time. A bunch of Americans gathered at the various Starlite Diners(very American style diners) around Moscow. One of my friends invited me and a bunch of other friends to one of the diners where we sat for at least 5 hours, drinking coffee, tea, milkshakes, eating hashbrowns, eggs, and watching the results and cheering everytime the democrats had a success. I would not have been able to get up so early had I not been so excited- I could barely fall asleep the evening before.




I'm so glad I didn't just stay at home and hit the refresh button the CNN Election website all morning.
When Obama was announced as the next President of the United States, everyone in the room was silent, eyes glued to the television, listening attentively to his speech, and nobody could hold back the tears. It really was a beautiful moment.

Only a couple of hours later I had a Russian lesson so I left.
It was a surreal moment. Walking out of the diner that crisp morning, I felt like I was walking out into a different world than what I had last seen before those 5 hours in the diner. At 3 AM it was of course dark outside, which is when I arrived to the diner, and at 8 AM the sun was out, the streets were still quiet and the only person I saw was a street cleaner. The air was chill, the breeze refreshing, my mind a bit warped by the lack of sleep, and what I was feeling in my head and heart was indescribable. But the beautiful morning in Moscow was the perfect setting to walk through as I recalled what had just happened.

What I saw immediately after exiting the diner:


The diner:

Lacking

More for the sports fans...

The past 2 weeks have been physically difficult.
I keep getting sick and it feels like I have lost the ability to take care of myself. Times like these I feel like I need to be back home in my childhood room, receiving the hot washcloths, ginger ale and saltine crackers from mommy.

I had some mild food poisoning that passed after a couple of days, just in time to welcome the nastiest cold I have ever had.
Mostly I have just been bed-ridden. Too tired to walk to the store even. I had a small temperature, coughing up lots of gooey stuff, not sleeping well, sore throat, and the most impressive amount of nose-blowing. Yesterday my wonderful french doctor gave me some antibiotics. I really hate taking medication, but the pain I am feeling all over my head with this sinus pressure is pretty unbearable.

I should be better just in time for my September trip to Nice, France. Oh yes my friends. I am going to the beautiful French Riviera for "work"
I will be there for 10 days, afterwards I am sure I will have some great pictures to share.


Before that, I want to show some pictures/share some stories about two things that we did this summer that are of interest- the Eurofolk festival and the Russian Railways Cups with Chelsea, AC Milan, Sevilla FC and Lokomotiv.

In the previous post with aerial shots of Moscow, I included two pictures from Tsaritsino Park. We visited this park for a Eurofolk Festival.
We only stayed for a few acts. First was an Irish duo, then a soloist from Czech Republic and we left after a quartet from Sweden. It was a pretty cool experience to see famous folk musicians from all over Europe.

Festival:


Park:


If you look at the center left, you can see a newlywed couple taking photos.




The other side of the bridge from the last picture.



For the most part, the pictures of the castle didn't work because the sun was on the wrong side, so everything is dark.



The glass museum.



The music-cued fountains.
A youtube video I found of the fountain at night:


Like I said in the other post about this park, it was built and used by Catherine the Great and other Tsaritsinas during the 16th-18th centuries.


So, "more for the sports fans"

If you remember my previous post about the Champions League Final 2008 that took place here in Moscow, between Chelsea and Manchester United.

Again we were able to see Chelsea and other equally as talented teams.

Lokomotiv, the football club in our neighborhood in Moscow held a tournament called the Russian Railways Cup.

Sevilla FC from Spain, AC Milan from Italy, Chelsea from England (a Russian favorite) and Lokomtiv played 4 games in 2 days.
We went the second day for the finals.

Chelsea and AC Milan played for the 3rd place spot. I was hoping that AC Milan's recently signed player(and my absolute favorite footballer), Ronaldinho would be there, but he was away for the Olympics.

They were all friendly matches, more of the second-string was played, and there wasn't a very competitive spirit, but knowing all of this did not prepare me for this game. It was quite possibly the most embarassing game of football I have ever seen adults play.
Chelsea beat AC Milan 5-0. At least 2 of the goals were completely fudge ups by the big goon of a goalie.

Here is a video of the 5 goals. It isn't very clear and the audio is a little bit annoying, but you can see that the first goal goes between his legs and the third one he completely misses the ball as he kicks it, falling on his ass and the Chelsea forward just tapping it into the goal. That is maybe the worst and most embarassing way to mess up in a game, especially for a keeper.



Really, it seemed as if AC's defenders were paid to give these goals up. The first goal none of the defenders even try for the ball, and the second goal is assisted by the defender heading the ball to the top of the 18. WORST!

Ok yeah so pictures:
Vasili, Sarah Beth, and our Russian friend Dima outside of the stadium



SB and I







The incredibly elaborate Lokomotiv mascot



Fans of Lokomotiv



Lokomotiv vs. Sevilla




Cute kids do a victory lap with their trophy after winning the youth Railway Cup.

So cute!

The stadium and the train





Something interesting about the stadium- there is a story that it was built to cover up the construction of an underground bunker during the Soviet Union.
There is also a bunker underneath the Kremlin and our family's neighborhood in Taganska. They are all connected by a secret metro system. Their purpose is partly for the fear of nuclear attack, and I think partly because they were sneaky.
This is all according to a television show I watched in the U.S. a couple of months ago with my dad. The only Russian I talked to about it said that it's all rubbish.
The bunker that is supposedly underneath the stadium looks like a beautiful palace inside.

Actually, I just found this article about one of the bunkers being opened up to the public:

"Underground Marvels

A once-secret bunker, located 60 meters beneath central Moscow, opens to the public and may soon contain a museum devoted to the Cold War.

By Anna Malpas
Published: April 20, 2007

The entrance to the Tagansky Protected Command Point is concealed in an unassuming 19th-century building a few minutes' walk from a busy intersection. Given a paper pass by the guard, visitors take a high-speed elevator down to the formerly secret headquarters located 60 meters -- almost the height of a 20-story building -- underground. At that depth, conversation is drowned out every few minutes by the roar of metro trains passing overhead.

Sold off in an auction last year, the bunker now belongs to a private company that plans to turn it into an entertainment complex with a museum about the Cold War, a restaurant and even a spa. But it is already possible to book excursions around the 600-meter-long network of bare, cavernous tunnels."
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/04/20/106.html

I must go, as soon as possible.


Now, my stomach is growling and I think that the banana bread has finally cooled off enough to eat.... I'll be back in a week and a half with pictures of the beautiful French Riviera.

Something that I am finding rather frustrating about my experiences so far.... is that I really want certain people to be here to share it with me.

There are times when I go out exploring by myself, and each time I see many new things- not see as in a site, landmark, monument, etc... but the kind of things you can't find listed in a tourist phamphlet. The sort of things that I can't even begin to explain in a blabbering blog post. The way people act, the way places make you feel, the way different things touch you or just puzzle you because they are so different than anything you have experienced.

When I lived in Switzerland for a short time I changed and grew a lot without realizing it. I returned home a very different person. Travelling does that almost inevitably, I'm sure anyone has experienced it. But it's difficult to predict how much you are affected, until long after the experience. It is only months after Switzerland that I am able to really understand the experiences I had and the changes that followed.

So when I think of what to write in this blog, I feel like I'm robbing myself and friends that are reading because I am unable to accurately explain what each event really means.



Yesterday, Saturday, is the one day of the week that Vas and have all to ourselves to do whatever we choose with it. Neither of us have any responsibility on Saturday... so we usually end up just trying to enjoy the freedom. We relaxed all day and then tried to go see a movie. The listings were wrong so we decided to visit the Starbuck's on Stary Arbat. Stary Arbat is a pedestrian street that is one of the best places for a tourist to visit. There are lots of shops, good restaurants, artists upon artists wasting their talent on simple portrait sketches for dollars, musicians busking, street vendors upon street vendors all selling the same Russian souvenirs and Soviet Union knock-offs.

After the sun goes down, the street transforms into an entirely new world that neither of us had ever experienced. All of the vendors and artists had broken down their sets and tourists had retreated to their hotels. In their place were carnival games, crews of angsty Russian teenagers, the more talented musicians drawing large crowds dancing, the most extreme cases of drunk in public you can imagine upon other strange spectacles. People find peculiar ways to make a few bucks here. As we walked down the street we saw different people who had brought rabbits, displayed them upon cardboard posts with signs that said "Photo: 20 rubles" So for a dollar you could have your picture taken with a rabbit. And people were actually doing this. It's legal for anyone to ride horses in the city (you can't even have a horse in my hometown of some 12,000 residents... but this is a city of 10.5 million) and a teenage girl was taking her horse around the drunk-crowded street. One guy had a bottle with little tiny baby turtles in it and somehow was making money from it. I've seen people selling kittens here before. This was a moment where I really wanted someone in particular with me. Having certain people in certain situations can really make them into something entirely different. I would have done anything to have my friend Chris there.



Afterwards Vas and I did something so typically Russian.

We ate and had drinks at a Hard Rock Cafe. I had never been to one and we didn't feel like taking a taxi to another restaurant.



In the short time I've been here, I've had "first times" like this that I could have had easily done in the States, but just never got around to doing.

For instance, last week I gambled for the first time.

It was April 1st, Fool's Day, and I went to an event with one of Vas' colleagues. It was a big celebrity chess tournament that is held annually on April 1st at a French hotel and casino. My "date" is a well known businessman/politician who won last year's tournament. He introduced me to all of the Russian bigwigs and I enjoyed the free champagne and fresh fruit. I had my picture taken with a producer, director, musician, poet, the great hockey goalie and current president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation Vladislav Tretiak. All of the players received giftbags from the hotel which included some playing chips. So while my friend played I hit the Roulette table and won a wopping $10.

I'm sure if I understood the games a little bit better I would have enjoyed myself, but I didn't quite get the whole gambling fever thing. It's probably better that way anyways.



Something I dislike and at the same time like about Moscow...

women are very, very different. In general, they are very feminine and to me, can look provocative. The make-up is always heavy, the clothing ensemble is always over the top (I would say gaudy but they would probably call me dull) the boots always very high-heeled and overall very suggestive.

Aside from my tattoos I think that I present myself rather conservatively. For the most part I stay away from anything too short or too low, I wear minimal make-up and jewelry and don't try to show off anything... be it money or my body...

so men don't notice me as much. Which I think of as a blessing. Being approached by strange men makes me extremely uncomfortable even if they are harmless. I should find it flattering, but instead the whole situation makes me embarassed. So being a sort of plain jane American girl here works for my favor.

In Europe last summer I was approached by men regularly (not for anything special about me, that's just culture.) I don't think that I was dressed any differently, but I think that Moscovite men are use to a different kind of woman.

The other evening I was waiting for my friend outside of a restaurant at another pedestrian street that's populated by the young and trendy with a little bit more money to spend- so a safe place, I think. And I was approached by a young Russian, presentable looking man. He asked me where one can get ice-cream around here (which is hilariously typical of Russians because they LOVE their ice-cream. Even in below freezing, blizzard-like weather they stop at a street kiosk to satisfy their cravings). He continued to ask me further questions... he invited me for a walk and to see a photo exhibition with him the following day, etc. I made sure to show him that I was not interested and to tell him that I was happily in a relationship. He was relentless, however. About 10 minutes went by and he finally gave up, said goodbye, shook my hand, kissed me on the cheek and pulled the creepiest move. He sniffed me. It was a move straight out of Saturday Night Live. He sniffed up my shoulder, neck, to my hair and lightly groaned. Ugh it was so filthy! I pushed his shoulder and he took off. I looked around for a group of his friends laughing as if they had just dared him to do it, but I didn't see any.

So those creepy guys you see in those "far fetched" SNL or MAD TV skits... they actually do exist.

A friend told me a statistic that Russian women spend 17% of their income on make-up. This is strange to me because Russia is known for it's beautiful women. To me, money in general seems to be used differently here. Well, I should rephrase that. I think that my family and many of my close friends are very careful with their money, they don't put a lot of it towards the smaller material things. So my view is probably different than many Americans. I've been raised to spend money in certain ways that is entirely different than what I have seen from the average Moscovite. I predict that if I had been raised here, I would not be so different. After thinking it through, and talking about it with a couple of people, I realized that there is nothing wrong at all with this difference. It has been almost 2 decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. With the new era of a market economy people for the first time have money to spend and products to spend the money on. People that are my age are the first generation to have this financial freedom. So who wouldn't take advantage of the opportunity... the opportunity to buy stuff while you're in the metro stations, riding the metro, walking across the street, walking in the tunnels underneath the streets, in the open markets, boutiques, or shopping malls the size of Cornelius (my hometown in North Carolina).

To quickly revert back to the beginning,
I'm beginning to miss people back home a little bit more. I constantly catch myself thinking about what this person would think of this situation or that situation... I catch myself making up the conversation we would have in my head.. then I just catch myself missing the sound of their voice or their little mannerisms.
But I'm okay with missing everyone. I think that this is one of the most important adventures of my life, and I am happier than I have ever been going through it, especially with Vas. I know that you have to give (up) a little to gain a little (/a lot). But everything that I am doing and seeing and learning is more than I could ever have expected from life and I welcome all of the good with the bad.
As this is truly the happiest I have been in my life, it really is the greatest challenge I have faced yet.

And although this is a lesson we have all learned many times before and has been solidified into all of our minds since childhood, a great doctor on a great t.v. show called Scrubs told me this morning,

"nothing that's worth it comes easily"

Not much has happened, yet so much has happened...

So I have been in Moscow, Russia for about 3 weeks now. I wish I could say that I have done more than I have. I wish I could say that I have been everywhere in my tourist book by now- 3 weeks is certainly enough time- but so much of this time has been spent settling in, rather than having fun.



Settling sure does take a lot out of you. Trying to create new systems, procedures, routines- in a new city, a new home, with a new person... I suppose the best way to describe it is simply as... "adjusting."



Unfortunately adjusting does not provide a lot of exciting stories for blogging.



But to describe a regular day for Micah in Moscow:

-Wake up around 8 or 9 with Vas, fix breakfast and start studying Russian.

-3 days of the week I have Russian lessons with Olga. Olga is 24, and a very nice, modest teacher. Private lessons don't come cheap, but I think they will be worth it.

-I usually spend my day walking around and learning the neighborhood. Sometimes I go running, sometimes I spend too much time on the internet, mostly I obsessively clean the kitchen and go through old grandmother treasures.

-Sometimes in the evenings Vas and I play football with some neighborhood kids by his fathers'. Running around, playing well and spending time with people in this way has been my source of sanity. Thank goodness for endorphins.

-Recently I figured out how to watch Scrubs and Arrested Development on-line for free. There is another "thank goodness."



I've also been playing around with food a lot. I have been forced to be very creative. A vegan diet does not come easily or cheap in Moscow. But for over 6 years I have been working through it... there is no way that living in another country will change that. Luckily we have that wonderful Hare Krishna veggie restaurant.

I love food, wait- I really love vegan food- so this may only be interesting to me, but here is a picture of the food I am eating on a regular basis:



Pictured: Mueslii, dark chocolate, sugar puff pastry, juice, soymilk, canned cherries, jasmine green tea, instant coffee, rice cakes, dried fruit and nuts, seaweed, fake salami (almost all gone), fake hot dogs, vegan mayo and indian spiced tea.

Not pictured: apples and lots of them, frozen spinach, cucumbers, rice, miso, and other veggies (mostly frozen).



I have been cooking and baking every day- and I think that I am getting better.



I may be starting a job soon, which is FANTASTIC news. If all works out, I will be taking care of a 3 year old boy 3 days a week, and teaching him English. It seems that this family will be taking very good care of me, and I will get to join them in France in the summer for a few weeks.

Let us cross our fingers on this opportunity.



Yesterday I took my first lone trip out into the city using the metro. This is no easy task, I will call it adventerous and even a little bit courageous, because it is much different than any metro I have used before (and I have ridden metros in Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Paris, Madrid, Prague, Rome, etc) and nothing is in English. It's like getting through a maze sometimes. Plus, the entire metro system is humongous. It is bigger than the systems of London and NYC put together:





Here are pictures from my outting, there are many I meant to take but forgot to.



Pictures from the nearby Market:





This is usual for markets here. They are like flea markets, but more official and formal. There are many of these small, privately owned mini stores. There are maybe 10 for fresh produce, 10 for cigarettes, womens clothing, housing, coffee/tea, meat, cheese, salami, some asian, toilettries, the list goes on.

We went to a similar market that was all electronics and it was set up the same way. Some specialized in computer monitors, others in WiFi stuff, and so on.



Walking to the Metro:









Eventually I will be making a post just for the metro. The stations are works of art in their own- and hold so much history.. it definitely deserves it's own post.

Pictures from the Red Square area:





this is the stage in which Putin and Medvedev, Russia's new leader, spoke to the country after the results of the election on Sunday came in.









and I thought you would all be happy/relieved to know that when Vas and I went to Ikea last week, I got a new hippo:


We bought new bookcases, wardrobe, dresser, chair, lamps and a big red couch. I will post pictures of the apartment soon.
I was also informed today that in May we will be going through an entire renovation of the apartment. So the completion of the apartment may not come until the end of the summer.

I began this actual post last week.
Today it is Saturday, the 8th of March.
Unfortunately it is the one year anniversary of a tragic loss- a day when we lost one of the most amazing people I have been lucky enough to know in life, Charles Lewis.
Charles, I hope that you know we will never forget you, and there is still so much love for you that exists here on Earth- from Richmond, VA all the way to Russia. And I can just see your bright, shiny smile right now as I type this. We love you and miss you my dear friend!

On another note, March 8th is a good day for Russians.
It is National Woman's Day.
The last post was Man's Day, and ironically today is Woman's Day.

Every woman in Russia is walking around with a bouquet of flowers in her hand. It's quite a nice sight.



"A little more matriarchy is what the world needs, and I know it. Period. Paragraph."
-Dorothy Thompson