Our First Month as Muscovites...

...Has been challenging, incredible and everywhere in between. For the first 7 days we were without hot water. Moscow has a municipal hot water system that uses large heating plants throughout the city to pump hot water to residents. Typically, during the summer months in Moscow, the city shuts down the hot water supply to one district at a time so they can inspect and fix any pipes that were damaged during winter. Some people will have a small water heater installed to use during this time. Checking to see if the flat has a water heater for this purpose is a huge point to clarify when looking for accommodations in Moscow. However, the majority of Muscovites resort to boiling water for their baths. Some even choose to forgo bathing all together. As a result, the hot sticky summer months can get "ripe" on the metro. The district our flat is in had already undergone these repairs. Yet, when Mark woke up for his first day of work, we were without hot water. Mark opted to boil water and take a sponge bath, camping style. Danielle opted to go to a friend's house and use his shower, as he has a hot water heater. Once the water came back on, nearly a week later,  Willy Wonka's Chocolate Waterfall began to flow out of the pipes. It took almost a full day of letting the water run to clear the pipes. At the end of the day, we were just grateful to have clear, hot water. Living in the States, we take for granted little things like this. We are definitely learning to appreciate just how good we have it at home.

We visited the Kremlin and Red Square our first weekend. There is so much to see there. We will have to take at least a few trips to get everything in. We have all seen pictures and video of soldiers marching, tanks rolling and numerous historical figures speaking in the square. It was breathtaking to think that we were standing where so many historical images originate. It was crowded with tourists and locals alike. Some were queuing to see Lenin's Tomb. Others were waiting to go into St. Basil's Cathedral. We just walked around, taking it all in, and taking lots of photos!

Entering Red Square

Panorama of Red Square (Facing South)

Moscow State Historical Museum

St. Basil's Cathedral

Lenin's Tomb and Mausoleum

Sunset in Red Square (Facing North)

We finished with a walking tour along the Moscow River which ended at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Moscow River with the Kremlin on the left

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

The owner of our flat is very generous. She was very excited to hear that Americans were moving into her flat. Our first Sunday, she arrived at our flat, too early for the two of us who were still jet-lagged, and planned on showing us interesting sights around the city. She took us to a local Orthodox church that was celebrating their heritage. They had booths set up with local sweets, flowers, kvass, and numerous arts and crafts. We walked around the tents, tasted the sweets and listened to live traditional music. There were women selling flowers and children playing games as everyone enjoyed the sunshine. She then took us to an outdoor area where artists sell their paintings. We walked through the stalls, admiring the art and then headed home. We were very grateful that she took the time to show us around but happy to see our long first weekend come to an end.

SS Mikhail & Fyoder Church

We spent the next two weekends getting our flat settled, which meant finding all of the stores where we could find our creature comforts. This included going to two different Mega malls on opposite ends of the city. Both of these malls had an IKEA and Auchan and were mega-massive. (note: When viewing these websites, using Google Chrome as your web browser will automatically translate the pages that are written in Russian, or any other language for that matter) Getting to these malls required a metro ride to the end of the line, then a bus ride to our final destination. This is about an hour long trip. A metro ride costs about 28 Rubles ($.86). This price gets cheaper depending on the type of metro card you purchase and the amount of rides you buy at once. The bus also costs 28 Rubles  per trip. Once outside the metro station, it was easy to find the correct bus as they come every 15 minutes and are bright yellow with the Mega Mall logo on the side of them. We were sure to note the bus number we caught outside the metro station, as some Mega buses have multiple lines, servicing different metro stations. Our latest shopping "trip" turned into a shopping "day". From leaving our house, travel, shopping, travel again and back home was about 9 hours.

Mark has been working and Danielle has been Molly Homemaker. Mark goes into work at 1000 and gets off at 1900 (the normal Russian work day). He has about a ten minute walk to work and usually comes home for lunch. Danielle has spent the first few weeks getting the flat situated. She is sure to get the girls out often and take them for long walks through our neighborhood. She has also started dabbling in cooking and has made some pretty good meals! Our schedules have yet to adjust due to the strange work day and the fact that the sun does not go down until almost 11:30pm! For the first few weeks it was rainy or cloudy and overcast nearly every day. The past week has been hot one day and cold and rainy the next. There have been incredible thunder storms rolling through some evenings, where it's been hard to tell if there were multiple thunder crashes in a row, or just one, long, continuous strike for nearly ten minutes! There have been incredible downpours, followed by beautiful, partly cloudy, sun shine. Mark's colleagues have told us that this is NOT normal for a Moscow summer. Either way, it has been interesting, considering we walk everywhere and need to take the girls out often.

We plan on tackling the city one weekend at a time. There are countless recommended sights and we hope to collect most, if not all, of them. We have already ticked off our list things like Gorky Park, Arbat Street and took the girls on their first metro ride (details posted soon). Mark also went on his first business trip to Sochi where he toured the venues and explored the city. Wish us luck and stay tuned...