June 13

With our plans well orchestrated, we woke up by 7:30 & 8 a.m. to start our last day to discover Moscow. We ate our breakfast in shifts & took showers, dressed, packed a small sandwich snack pack for everyone & were off by 9:30--well within our range of time to leave to reach our 12 noon Red October chocolate factory tour. Getting out of Elektrostal & much of the way to Moscow was fine; then the traffic started. The kids were busily watching Spongebob on the DVD player while Patrick & Christy weighed the options. It was finally decided partway into the city that we'd park farther back than originally planned & catch the metro to the chocolate factory. After snarfing down our sandwiches & lemonade, we quickly got going with that new plan. With many little factors weighing in, we weren't able to keep our appointment so completely missed the chocolate factory tour. Hey, little things happen & add up to "these things happen." Then we were so worn out from hoofin' it to make our tour that we sauntered back to the Kremlin/Red Square area to try our hand at our next tourist plan for the day. The thing about Russia, is that you can't book everything in advance & simply have to play into the plan of whoever is in charge for the day. Long story short, we couldn't get tickets for the day to visit the Armory either. But that final decision didn't happen 'til hours later & many tries to gain access to this tour. Shucks! It's a collection of many of Russia's valuable treasures--gilded carriages, weapons, Faberge eggs, Bibles, etc. So already our planned day was going everything but according to plan A. However, in the meantime, Patrick & kids had found a bus tour of the city. Madeleine & I were pretty tired of all the walking back & forth we'd already done to try to do the chocolate factory & the Armory, so instead of doing a bus tour (we had a boat tour at the beginning of our time here), we were right next to the Museum of History so opted for that. It was very affordable & we paid the extra that allows us to take pictures inside. It was a nice stroll through of many similar treasures to the Armory, so it ended up being a great alternative. Of course we just did our own strolling & didn't know what all the placards said since we don't know Russian, but it was fun to see all the cool treasures. Patrick actually prefers this museum now to the Armory. They'd never been before to the museum so now they have a different place to tell their visitors about.

Now it was late enough in our day that we headed to one of the local TGIFridays restaurants--perhaps a late anniversary dinner for Patrick & Christy & an early one for me to celebrate without Seth? Thanks Aunt Ruth & Uncle Ed for this dinner treat. Orginally you were treating us to the chocolate factory tour, but alas plan B had to come into effect. We had some good ol' American food (I had Bruschetta Pangonisi--white fish with a tomato-basil topping) before heading to find our theatre for the ballet. We knew at least this one thing would go as planned today since we actually had pre-purchased tickets. We did find the theatre not far from our restaurant & were 30 minutes prior to showtime. It was put on in the Pushkin theatre. We saw "Sleeping Beauty," & it was as probably not quite as good as the amateur ones I've seen at Friends University--not what I would call a professional calibre, though it was put on by a professional company of Moscow. The first half had many technical foibles for many of the dancers with only 1 dancer showing any talent at all. Madeleine could've done anything from the first half. Our seats were in the same row as each other, but Madeleine & I sat separately from Christy & Megan. At intermission we went up to the small cafe area to get drinks & a small snack, but the bartender wouldn't accept 1000 ruble bill & that's all Christy or I had so we went back to our seats for the second half without any refreshment. The second half showed more technical promise, but ballets do tend to get long-winded due to all the solo work & featured dances of only a few dancers at a time. It had more technical difficulty & was funner for me to watch. I laughed inside because at curtain call time, one of the worst dancers there (who actually had a prominent dance role throughout) received a huge bunch of roses (probably 50 or so) from an admirer & the lead role received barely a handful. We saw Megan's 1st grade teacher on the way out of the ballet.

Next it was time to call Patrick & Ethan (who had spent their time during the ballet at a former classmate's house from their time living in Moscow) to meet up with them. Christy got her metro instructions & transfers all straight--catch the green line, go 2 stops, & meet at the platform of the yellow line--and we were off to find our way back to the car to head home.