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| Tarzan/Arthur |
Okay, I know...I haven't been on for two days - to tell you the truth, you're lucky i'm on now seeing as I'm like the hunched back of Notradame (if spelt incorrect then I don't care and you know what I mean). Anyway, I'm bloody crippled. I've just discovered that there are mosquitoes in Moscow - the back of one of my legs is like a rugby ball and one of my cheeks (yeah people, the one by my nose) is quite similar. I'd actually read it in one of the guide books but had forgotten - it was lucky we remembered as we were about to accuse the hotel of having fleas...that could have been a tense moment. So, not only have I got massive whelts appearing everywhere but I was sitting at breakfast yesterday and felt a lump in my arm - oh my god, I have a growth...I'm in Russia, what am I going to do? Quickly bringing up my shirt in a slightly frightened yet need to know fashion, I realised that the lump was in fact a protruding muscle.....holy mother of God, I have triceps. I don't think up to this point I have ever noticed having triceps or biceps or whatever they are called but now I have two and they are making a bid for freedom. Stair climbing is definitely having an effect and to tell you the truth, you need them to drink the litre cans of lager that are sold here -
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| Russian Can/Normal sized can |
No wonder the Russians are good at weight lifting - they have plenty of practice at home with these cans!
Not only am I crippled from mosquito bites and muscle bulging and some rather unpleasant chaffing from the jeans but my Dad came to visit today from St. Peters burg (where he is currently on holiday) and we did a straight 4 hours walking to see the sights - not all of them but a small portion before legs gave out. I know I keep going on about the stairs but seriously - up down up down up down - with buggy and 2 stone mega child....My knees are starting to give way, my back hurts so that I'm hunched over and I think I have two corns on my toes...they're white anyway - maybe it's gangrene - next week i'll have no toes at all....just a metal stump where my legs used to be....there are quite a lot of beggars with metal stumps for legs - maybe they had to climb too many stairs and now see what's happened to them.
Enough about me - I took some photos today of the glorious sights and sounds of Moscow, there is quite a varied batch, but you see because of the whole dial up internet palava I have to write the blog in the room and then go down to hotel lobby to load photos and in so doing forget what i've written and what photos are to go where. The following are just some interesting places we saw before the collapse of my spinal cord-
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| Tomb of the unknown soldier |
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| Rather moving memorial |
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| Kremlin entrance |
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| Fountain with horses running along side Kremlin gardens |
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| Along side of Kremlin gardens - beautiful blue mosaics under the water |
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| Dad, Arthur and I |
The shopping malls here are also very beautiful inside -
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| Ceiling of mall with map of Russia - just in case you get lost - |
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| Fountain in shopping mall - they have a M&S.... |
They have metal detectors everywhere here - sometimes there are no people manning them but you go through anyway and beep and then have a game to think what it is you have on you that has made it beep....oh the fun you can have!
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| Cathedral Gardens |
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| View from the bridge of the Cathedral down the Moscva river to Kremlin |
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| A small church hidden between 1950's tower blocks |
The strange monument in the background - like the front of a ship ( was going to use a technical boat term but realised I don't know what the front of a boat is called - a bow?) is a tribute to Peter the Great who founded the Russian navy -
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| Graeme the Great (in his head anyway) |
We then headed to Stary Arbat which means old Arbat - the bohemian place i've told you about before. I actually had the camera this time so I have some evidence!
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| Stary Arbat |
It's a little like Covent Garden with the street artists and musicians - check out the video of the mad guitar thing with bells on (Listen, I can only inform to a certain level - you can use google and check what instrument it is).
We also saw Pushkin's house - Tchaikovsky also lived here at some point in his life.
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| House of Pushkin |
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| Pushkin |
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A dancing lady - with three drunks behind....
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I also have some rather splendid Metro pictures - you didn't think i'd forget about my Metro obsession did you?
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| Entrance to Smolenskaya Metro |
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| Metro Station |
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| Above the escalators |
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| Going down sir.... |
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| If I can't find an apartment, I might live here. |
So followers - although you had to wait a day or two for next update- your dictator has been busy and is growing stronger - one muscle at a time. If you are wondering what I did yesterday well, visited two flats - one was enormous - two balconies, a walk in wardrobe that had room to iron and everything (not that I would ever be in there...) and 3 toilets....we could have one each...but it was in the wrong area. Arthur and I came home and we spent the afternoon exploring the corridors of the hotel....
Sometimes you've just gotta do something simple to quiet the mind and androgynous hotel corridors have that power - as long as you don't slip into 'The Shining' territory because then this blog would turn into an entirely different affair....'
Wendy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me. And it will then take me time to get back to where I was. You understand? '
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