Уважаемые Пассажиры!

It seems I spent a very large amount of my day today underground. Not only is the Метро the most extensive subway system I've ever seen, but many crosswalks are underground, so as not to hinder the flow of traffic. In the large squares and intersections, this can make for very interesting navigation techniques as you try to calculate the angles and turns inside this vast system of tunnels. The largest one we were in was probably at Охотный ряд near Red Square. It stretches for at least half a mile; has multiple entry/exit points; and I'm pretty sure there was an entrance to the Okhotny Ryad Station there as well - if not, it is not uncommon for these crosswalks to have Metro entrances in the Center and some have entrances to multiple stations. Hopefully, you get the idea - you can appear and disappear underground almost anywhere in the Center by slipping into a Metro station or an underground crosswalk. One last thing though; when we were at the Alexandrov Garden, we took a tunnel to the Lenin library and inside there was a sextet of musicians playing Vivaldi. I am so glad that Professor Goldberg let us stop to listen because they were excellent.

Otherwise, I explored more thoroughly today with the group of students I'm studying with than yesterday, when I rode a троллейбус around the Kremlin with my host. We got off at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (which has a very interesting history if you ever want to look it up) and walked back to the apartment from there via an outdoor museum near the New Tretyakov Gallery. They have a lot of new statues there, but most interestingly, this museum is where they sent a lot of the statues of Soviet leaders that were torn down.

Today however, we did more on foot instead of by trolley. For some reason Red Square is closed currently, but we went to look at it anyway. Good thing we did too - there was a man outside it with two monkeys on leashes dressed in human clothes. It was a very strange sight. I now have a phone here as well and I'll post the number as soon as I figure how billing works. I really don't want to have to pay a ton for long distance calling - calling is already complicated enough here. We also ate our first Russian fast food at a restaurant called "Теремок." I had a блин с грибами и сыром (a blin, or Russian crepe-type thing, with mushrooms and cheese).

Finally, I had to find my own way home. A lot of the other students are concentrated in certain parts of the city, but no one really lives near me. After exiting the Metro, I found that I had turned left instead of right and ended up walking about twice as far as was necessary. I knew exactly what I had done right as I did it, but I wasn't in a particularly nice part of town and I'm pretty sure I was being followed at one point, so I didn't want to give away that I wasn't familiar with the area. Буду знать. Next time I'll know.