Tourists, part ii

For the past few days I've taken my parents sightseeing in Moscow. This included

1. visiting the Imperial Porcelain factory, former purveyors to the tsars. For my mother, no trip is complete without checking out the local pottery/porcelain/china. I don't know much about this (for example, I couldn't explain the difference between three things above), but I know THIS has to be the best stuff she's seen. I mean, look who uses it:

I just really love that they thought it was necessary to include this picture in their store.

2. A trip down Arbat street, a place I've been avoiding all month, and rightly so -- it was full of tourists, Russians dressed in traditional "Russian" garb, and artists selling their abilities with pictures of Dima and Britney Spears.

This picture doesn't begin to capture what it's like. I'm not sure what the draw is.

When I went in to look at a store, the salesgirl quoted me a price on something that was over three times what I'd paid in St. Petersburg (with a little bargaining). I turned to leave, and before I could get out the door the price dropped two more times -- but was still higher.

3. St. Basil's.

Isn't it nice?

4. An Uzbek restaurant for dinner, which had

a. servers who weren't familiar with non (bread)

b. enough horse on the menu to freak out my mom

c. enough morozhenoe on the menu to pacify my mom

d. belly dancers.

It might've had cockfights as well, but we didn't stay long enough to see.

5. A tour of the two places in Moscow open at 8 am, Coffee House

and the bakery near Patriarch's Pond. I like it better at 8 pm.

6. Sparrow hills, another place that's way overrated, to get the panoramic of Moscow.

It's not even a great view. You can see a few churches from here but mostly you just see new skyscrapers. Again, I don't know what the big fuss is about.

7. Yet more Kremlin sightseeing. This time I saw in addition to everything else I got to see the Armory museum, which was amazing. They had Ivan the Terrible's throne! Faberge eggs! Boris Godunov's armor! And other things that are exciting only to Russian history geeks.