Gorky Park

Arthur at Gorky Park - pointing as always!

I think I must be eating the wrong things at breakfast because I'm following Arthur's sleeping pattern at the moment - yesterday and today I put him to bed at 9.30am for his nap and I went to bed too - we both woke up at 12ish! I think it may be the fact that i've discovered they do pancakes and maple syrup, not the best way to start the day - huge sugar high and then two hours in bed.

Great story in the paper today - Putin and Berlusconi were chatting about the fact that the Italians are doing tests and research on how to extend a human's life to 120 years old. Putin then says to Berlusconi 'Ahhh excellent, we can be Prime minister forever'. Indeed Putin, but I don't think that's quite the point of the research.

We have managed to bring the flat hunting to a close for now and have narrowed our choice down to 2 apartments - I HATE IT! Neither is perfect and so on both you would have to compromise. The first is opposite a park (great for Alice and Arthur) it has three bedrooms although the lay out is slightly odd and there is a bedroom off the kitchen - you would also have to get the Metro 2 stops to Arthur's nursery but it is in a family area and is quiet. The other has only two bedrooms but is $1000 less per month but is on a main road 2 minutes from the Kremlin - great that it is in centre but not great for Alice but Arthur's nursery is only 2 minutes walk away and it has an odd charm with huge ceilings and a nice kitchen where you could have a table but it has a weird lay out too and Arthur would end up with one of the biggest rooms in the flat that has double doors onto the sitting room - would this be too noisy? Plus it is on one of the busiest streets in Moscow so would the noise at night wake him up? Please write letters with your vote of which flat to ....P.O BOX Confused in Moscow....

 Anyway, once I'd finally managed to open my eyes yesterday, we decided to go and explore Gorky Park as we had been dragging poor Arthur around so many apartments and he hadn't had much fun so it was his day yesterday. We had to get the Metro there so guess what...some pics of Metro...

A rather splendid Metro....

On wall of Metro

When we came out of the Metro we were just at the start of a road called Leninsky Prospect (I think that might be a slightly wrong spelling as don't have map on me...) and so to go with the name there was a rather enormous statue to celebrate the fact-

Lenin guarding his road....

There was also a sweet little church tucked away on the corner-

Little Churches everywhere...

Gorky park is weird...it has grass and fountains but is full of fun fair rides that look like they've seen better days. I don't think you could pay me enough money to go on one of them but hey maybe with enough vodka you never know.

Entrance to Gorky Park

In front of Gorky Park entrance

Nothing is small here....

 Arthur seemed to enjoy the whole excursion - he went on a train with his daddy - ahhhh

Off they go!

There was also the chance for a camel ride...

Yes - it is a real camel.

Again, maybe after a few vodkas but not before. We weren't quite sure how to buy tickets for the small rides and didn't think poor Arthur was big enough so we had a good walk round and saw lots of interesting things -

Gorky Park

Soldiers in the park

Large Soviet headquarters to something...

View down the Moscva from the park

View the other way - 

Our future house...

We were calling him Jean Paul Gautier all day (the jumper)

We stopped off in a small restaurant and the only thing we could work out from the menu was PIVO - remember people, this is beer and my new words of the day KARTOFEL FRI - fried potatoes (chips). So I can now ask for chips and beer in Russian and so I no longer need to get Russian classes as I think I will be able to exist on this for quite a while. Typical that these are my first words but heh...little by little. I can say milk - MOLOKO just in case you thought my language skills had based themselves on all things bad. I can actually say a few other things as well but I will not bore you with my pigeon Russian - in fact I think pigeon might be too big for this description maybe I should say my Blue Tit Russian.

So, poor Arthur was given a little clean air and we managed to walk another 20km in a 3 hour extravaganza around Moscow.

Today we have been shopping - I have discovered that all things baby - e.g food and nappies etc. are to be found in toy shops and not supermarkets - well not in the centre anyway. Having made this discovery I then had to fight my way up 20 steep steps into the toy shop - tell me people, is it just me or why put steep steps up to a toy shop when your target market is people with buggies? Seriously - these people hate people with buggies. Anyway 36 nappies cost me £9 - bloody hell! That was the cheap brand as well. The baby food is the same price although they are awfully fond of tarragon in their baby food - strange.  I think that shopping is much cheaper when you go to the hyper markets on the outskirts - there are free buses that take you to them from the Metro so I think once we're in a flat I will go out to one of them once a month for my big shop which will save me money. I will have to get a taxi back but Graeme has been given a number of a cab company that give Graeme's work a discount and they have English speaking operators...phew.

That's it for now folks, I'm about to take Arthur down to the hotel lobby for his evening exercise and then I shall be trying to cook a beef pie with one pot and a frying pan (this is all I have in the apartment). I think I bought roll out puff pastry today but who knows - i'll probably open the packet and it'll be tripe or something just as pleasant.....

On the way home...

In Arthur's words 'Brooooom Broooooooom'