Day six...Out and about...

It was a long, long day…of course, it could have been longer!  I did over sleep a little when my alarm went off at 8am and I re-set it for 8:20 and I woke up at 9:30…  All the designers had already headed off into whatever direction they wanted so I just took a shower, ate breakfast, and started to walk down to the school for our first class (scheduled to start at 2:30).

For a little adventure, I decided to walk down Trevskaya St. on the other side of the street to see the buildings that we’ve been walking beside for the last four days.  It was a good experience and I took a massive amount of pictures.  I guess it was nice to be able to go at my own pace (which is a little fast at times) and be able to stop to take whatever pictures I wanted wherever I wanted to take them.  The good news is that I think I pretty much have the whole of Trevskaya St. photographed so I don’t need to take anymore photos…

I ate lunch in the school cafeteria while taking a few more notes on the play that I’ll be working on in our design class, The Three Sisters.  I still had a little time before class so I checked out the Starbucks across the street…if you think Starbucks is expensive, try it over here!  I think most venti lattes are somewhere around $4-5 in the States but over here in Moscow it’s about 240-280 rubles, or $8-9 for the same drink.  I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a straight-up Venti Carmel Latte as much as I did today…but it will be a while before I have another…

Our class this afternoon was our first Stage Composition class.  Mostly just informative and we talked a little about designing for Chekhov and how he give you plenty of clues as to what he wanted for sets and costumes in the script.  Our first assignment is to answer a bunch of questions about our play.  I think I have a pretty good head start on that so I should be able to get somewhat detailed.

After class our class, I tagged along with Pegi and Alli as we continued to make our way around Moscow.  First we finished up the metro tour that we had started a couple nights ago.  It took a little longer than expected because one of the connecting passages between lines was inaccessible so we had to take the long way around.  We then headed over the Arbatskaya district to check out some odd architectural buildings.  It was a lot of walking but the buildings were pretty interesting and the architecture was indeed odd… I’ll try to remember put some pictures up when I can snag some free internet at a café.

We had a late dinner at a restaurant called Kish Mish and it had a pretty good Middle Eastern buffet.  I tried just about everything they had and I liked it all…if only I knew what any of it was called.  We decided we might invite the rest of the group back with us sometime.

All-in-all, even though I’ve only been here for a less than a week, I feel like I’ve started to adapt to life here fairly good.  The Metro doesn’t scare me anymore (as long as I have a map), I’m starting to be able to make some sense out of the language (i.e. reading names of streets and buildings), and I’m getting really use to walking close to, if not over, ten miles a day hefting my backpack along for a ride.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.  Some of us are heading over to the Christ the Savior Cathedral in the morning for the service.  While I’ve never been to a Russian Orthodox Church service, I am at more familiar with its cousin, the Antioch Orthodox Church.  It should be beautiful and I’m looking forward to the music!  Then we have bus tour of the city followed by another play which is One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the Lencom theatre (which I had just happened to walk past yesterday while meandering around the city).