Today, we went to the market via the the subway. We got to see a few of the famous Moscow metro stations, including one above ground which was not the one we wanted to get off at. It was extremely daunting, as the stations generally don't have English signage, and I have no idea how to read Cyrillic. A few of the stations are very deep, accessed via long, steep escalators. When coming up, if you look towards the down escalator, it appears that the people are all leaning back. It's a very disorienting experience.
But first, we found a cell phone store and bought sim cards for our phones so we can use Google maps. The guy at the store spoke better English than our Russian. But I'm not sure what words he knows beyond "sim card" and "internet". We managed to spend 200 rubles each for a sim card with 200 rubles worth of credit. When we asked how to top it up with more credit, he explained it slowly in Russian. So we still don't know. I think when I asked how much it costs per day, he said 10 rubles. That would mean we bought 20 days worth. We have internet access for now for about $7. When it runs out, we might just buy new sim cards.
The Ismailovo market itself is in and around this recently built replica of a medieval castle. It looks a little like an amusement park set up of something out of the Black Forest. We wandered a little bit from the metro before we found it. Guides should say "walk towards the crazy castle".
Saturdays are supposed to be the best and busiest. I commented at one point that perhaps we should have waited for a weekday, because it just kept going! Every time you thought you were at the end, you'd come to an intersection with alleys going off in several directions. The weekends seem to attract the flea market vendors, which adds the interest of the soviet era antiques which we would never see at home. I took very few photos, since I thought it would be odd to take photos of things I wasn't buying. Military memorabilia seems to be popular, including regiment pins, and ammunition. We decided not to try and get any of it home on the plane.
I discovered that when it comes to nesting dolls, there's such a thing as too much choice. It would take several hours to go through them all and choose one. The best one we saw via superficial investigation was a set painted to look like the 1972 Canadian hockey team. But for the $100 asking price, we didn't pick one up. I did buy a rabbit hat for 850 Rubles, about $28 Cdn. UG bought some soviet space propaganda posters.
There was a booth selling amazing smelling kabobs. UG ordered 2 without asking the price, and we were directed to a table to wait. The food was delivered, and we were charged about $30. And they weren't as tasty as they smelled. Oh, well, lesson learned. Always ask before ordering.
Dinner was the first of the launch VIP events. We met in the hotel lobby and walked to the "Most" Restaurant a half block from the hotel. I had a the duck with peach sauce, excellent. UG had the prime rib, which he reports was not Alberta quality. For dessert, we both had a "berry mille feuille", which was essentially a fancy version of a passion flakie. Mmm, I suspect this will be the dessert I hunt for over the next 2 weeks.
After dinner, we took a bus tour around the city to see the lights. Some areas were crowded with Saturday night revelers, while other areas we arrived too late and missed the lights. One area, a look out over the river and the city, was filled with young people and with full sized sound systems set up creating a street party. And not just a few people, but a large parking lot, with no space left to park any more cars in a way which North Americans would consider legal. We have an early morning tomorrow for our official Kremlin tour.
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