Moscow

Matt flew into Moscow on Friday, July 4 at 5:20 am. I had to go and meet him at the airport that early in the morning. I took a taxi, so that was good, I got to nap until we got to the airport. It was sure nice to see Matt, since it's been over a month since the last time we saw each other. We were able to get back to my apartment without much traffic, which was nice, but we could not fall asleep due to the fact that it gets really bright in my room during the day (lack of dark blinds). We talked until 10 am or so and then we just passed out until 3 pm (well, Matt at least):) which was nice. I was quite surprised to see Matt sleeping that much during the day, he never does that, but he got to fly over night, so I guess that is understandable. It was the first time in my life when Matt was sleeping and I was counting minutes until he woke up. The thing is, I slept just fine that night, I only slept 4.5 hours, but still it's much more than Matt got. I was ready to get up around 12pm, but I did not mind laying next to my hubby for 3 more hours until he was done snoozing :)

Friday night we got to go to a Georgian restaurant "Genatsvale", it is located on Old Arbat street, rather known street to meet many tourists. We stopped at my sister's work, picked her up and headed to the restaurant. We got seated in a rather private area and just enjoyed our food and each other's company for about 2.5 hours. I liked the restaurant, but next time I already scouted another one that I would like to take Matt to :)

Saturday was rather uneventful during the day, we slept in (again, I was surprised to see that Matt did not get till around noon), lounged for the most part of the day (oh, and snuggled a lot :)) and then at night Matt and I got all dressed up and went to see Russian ballet. Swan Lake was great. After 3 hours of watching ballet, enjoying some champagne and ice cream during intermissions, we finally headed home around 11 pm. But it was a no ordinary walk home. We walked out of the theater to discover a huge downpour. We both had umbrellas but those did not help much, rain was a bit outrageous. I was wearing summer shoes, so I really should have just walked barefoot in what seemed to be a river instead of pavement. We got to the subway, both rather wet, but pretty happy. On the way home Matt got to witness how some older Russian had fun in the train dancing Russian dances and singing Russian songs. It was amusing, Matt even took a video. We got home after another 10 minutes of walking under the rain and were happy to get out of our pretty (by then very wet) clothes and get some wine to warm up. Overall, a rather successful day.

Sunday I had only one activity planned, but Matt had something else in mind. He wanted to go to a Russian souvenir market to get a gift for his grandma. So, our first stop was exactly that. We got to spend about an hour at the souvenir market, we finally did find a gift for Matt grandma's 80th birthday. Although before we continued onto our next stop, I was told by Matt that my bargaining skills are not very good and I should take a class. Now, mind you I got the price of the gift down by 12%, and we got a rather nice gift to begin with, but I guess it was not enough for Matt.
So, next I decided to take Matt to a mountain (not really a mountain though, but it's called a mountain in Moscow) that was dedicated to WWII soldiers and battles. It's a huge park and we got to see quite a few tanks, helicopters, figter planes and tranches that were used during WWII and not only by Russians :) Matt really enjoyed that part. I got to climb on a couple of tanks and Matt climbed on one, and again we got drenched, because it was raining the entire time. We stopped at a little chuch on the mountain that was dedicated to WWII victory, but we were not able to hide there from rain for too long, because after about 3 minutes of us being there the mass started. We did not want to intrude, so we left. My jeans were drenched from my knees down (the disadvantage of being short, half of my legs were wet from rain). We made our way home to a nice supper of American pizza from Papa John's. Matt got to drink Russian beer and I had a bottle of German one :) We both were pretty happy and in great moods, even though we spent a substantual amount of time in the rain that day and got rather wet and cold.

Monday morning was bitter sweet, really. We got to the airport a little earlier than we had to be there at, so we got us some breakfast and even though it was nice to spend that time together, I hated that Matt was flying away from me. He got through customs ok, which was great.

So, our 3 day weekend together was happy and amazing, I just wish it could last a little longer, but oh well. It was great while it lasted!