Day Five...Walking and walking and walking....

(Note: this is an update to the original post on June 4, 2010)

The designers didn’t have class this morning so we decided to do a little sightseeing.  We left shortly after 9am and walked to closest metro station.  We hoped on the loop down to the closest station to the park.  Then we spent the rest of the morning walking around the park and taking lots of pictures.  All-in-all, I took close to 200 photographs today…and some of them are actually look pretty awesome.

Lock on a Bridge

Carrossel outside Gorky Park entrance

I’ll go to some things from the morning later but I thought I’d talk briefly about today’s class.  We had our first History of Chekhovian Costumes class today.  We have three total classes so our design project is just to design a costume for one of the characters in a Chekhov play.  This was also our first lecture type class with a non-English speaking professor so it was a little strange.  I don’t think I took as thorough notes as I would have liked but it was hard to keep up.  I asked about getting a copy of the Power Point she used so I could have some of the research images (plus, I hope to be able to translate the text to English using a translator program).

Statue among flowers in Gorky Park

Ok, back to random things from today…Gorky park was alright but one of the big things was wanted to see was gone.  They apparently had several old abandoned rides from the Stalin era but they must have taken them out since when the tour book that we are using was printed.  We think we found the spot but there was only bare concrete to greet us.   We also found a restaurant in the park that we want to go to some evening.

Cottonwood trees are pretty cool…except when there are thousands of them all in full reproductive mode at the same time.  It may be June in Moscow but it sometimes looks like December with all the Cottonwood seeds floating through the air.  Not only do they stick in your hair and on your clothes, but they also have a habit of flying into my mouth while I’m talking and walking down the street.  Not fun, not fun at all!

Exercise in Futility

This is a picture that I call “Exercise in Futility.”  They workers are sweeping up the cottonwood seeds while more just blow over the top the café and onto the sidewalk.

I’ve also noticed that the Muscovites have an interesting way of dealing with old falling apart buildings…they cover them up.  The erect some sort of scaffolding like thing to the front of the building and then stretch a loose weave of fabric across this with a new exterior painted on it.  Here’s an example.

The Cover Up!

Well, there is plenty more that I could add and there are few photos I want to put up here.  However, I think I’m getting low on my internet megabyte usage account and my new allotment doesn’t kick in until Monday.  So, I think I’ll just wait until them…it will be worth it!

Cathedral of Christ the Savior from afar