In Soviet Russia, blog updates you!

Thursday dawned delightfully bright and sunny as our overnight train pulled into Moscow around 8am. We went straight to Red Square from the train station, without so much as a stop for breakfast, or even a bathroom.

Fortunately, Red Square was one of my favorite points on the trip. We got a full 360-degree view of St. Basel's Cathedral (the other one with the candied onion domes, the one you're thinking of), a head-on shot of Lenin's mausoleum (inconveniently but temporarily closed to visitors), and a look at a smaller cathedral, inside and out. With the latter, services were ongoing, which made the visit of course doubly interesting.

Russian Orthodox services are unlike any church (or, for that matter, synagogue) service I've ever been to. The priests stand chanting in the front, facing a wall that separates the main room from the holy-of-holies in the back. People wander in and out, crossing themselves and lighting candles for the sick and deceased, saying what I guess is the equivalent of "And let us say, Amen." There aren't any seats, either. I had too little understanding of all this to quite get caught up in it, but I could definitely see the appeal. We also went into a bigger (though inactive) cathedral to wander around. It had Hebrew on the ceiling (!)-- according to Jon, this isn't a normal thing, but in that case it's part of the Church's claim to be the older, purer form of Christianity.

After this, we finally got brunch, followed by hotel check-in. We were given a few hours before dinner; I'd meant to do something with them but somehow, like just about everyone else, ended up collapsing in the form of a nap. Two and a half weeks on the road finished catching up with me!

Much more awake, I joined the rest of the group downstairs around 5:30 to meet a group of Russian students in the lobby. I was grouped with three other Americans and three Russians (two our age, Vavara and Phil, and one sixteen-year-old, the lip-smacking, Beatles-loving Ina) for the evening. We took a very long subway ride from the hotel to the Moscow State University area, where we made a shopping trip for pasta, salad supplies, and the like, and ended up back at Vavara's family's apartment to make dinner. Let it be noted here that I helped! I even steamed a significant amount of vegetables for the group.

Dinner was fun enough-- definitely worthwhile and interesting, if not life-changing. I grilled Vavara about the recent election after she'd expressed some surprise and confusion over the fact that we didn't know who was going to win the U.S. election in November (though I really wish I did, apparently only Pat Robertson has that knowledge). She'd voted for one of the opposition candidates, knowing full well what difference it would make, in a vaguely idealistic hope that it would actually make a difference. But as Medvedev has won, as more-than-predicted, she was okay with that. I couldn't quite believe that attitude.

The next morning, fortunately, we got a bit more insight into the Russian political scene. A leader from an opposition party that shall remain nameless, apparently, spent the hour or so we were given between breakfast and lunch explaining his take on things to us. He compared the state political system to Nigeria's, for instance, which caught us all by surprise. I asked him a few questions over tea and kvas (traditional rye bread-based surprisingly non-alcoholic drink) and learned that the Russian blogosphere is surprisingly open and uncensored unlike, say China's. I gathered, through Jon's translating, that many people are afraid of changes because of the potential for something worse (from within or without) to come. People who know better get nervous about persecution, apparently. And Putin, for all of his problematic characteristics from many perspectives, has done some good for Russia-- as well as being pretty effective in terms of consolidating and holding power.

Friday afternoon began with a guided tour of the Kremlin. This should have been far better than it was, unfortunately. Our guide and Jon knew their stuff, for sure, and much of it was interesting-- especially that each of the Kremlin's multiple cathedrals was built to host a different stage of a Czar's life--but we really only saw churches, and at this point of my spring break, I was pretty church-ed out. Add to this the fact that the government buildings are naturally very much not open to the public, and, well, I wish I could have seen more than didn't involve tombs and extensive iconography. There was also a really huge bell and an even larger cannon, fortunately (neither ever used, and Guinness World Record holders both).

We had the rest of the evening free, so Nadine and I found our way to an extensive outdoor bazaar, where we marveled at the clothing selection and found our way to the souvenir section for a bit more buying. Next we found our way to dinner at a guidebook-recommended chain known for its "traditional Russian folksy" look. The food was good enough, but the staff's English, less so. Still, there was garlic rye bread shaped like fish sticks and crepes with lox and vegetable soup, so no complaints.

The group reconvened near the university around 9, where Mia took us for a quick tour by night (for Stalinist architecture, quite pretty). We'd been told this would be followed by a trip to a local bar. "Local bar" turned out to be the most American, 50s-style diner you can imagine, down to the bathroom utilities. So there were milkshakes instead of more Baltika, and Nadine felt right at home!

Saturday was decidedly uneventful-- we'd wanted to go to a banya but the logistics of it weren't meant to be. The group departed from the hotel before noon, too, so there wasn't time for much but a very relaxed packing session. Several hours later, once the interminable bus ride and check-in lines were finished, Nadine and I split one last meal and killed the rest of our time in Russia marveling over the size (and, in one case, machine gun shape) of the bottles of vodka for sale at the duty-free stores.

Forty minutes or two hours and forty minutes later, depending on how you take the time difference into account, we were back in Copenhagen to stay at long last! Of all the places I've been this break, this is definitely going to be my favorite one to come back to. I stamped my klippekort for the subway and grabbed en lille chai-chino from Baresso before I even crossed the Skindergade threshold to find not an empty apartment, as I'd expected, but two out of three roommates! Talk about a hygge ending.