Today we did some sightseeing, which means I have something other than pictures of food and elevator instructions to share. We started with a trip to the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum. We took the metro (subway) there and had to go down the steepest, longest escalator I’ve ever seen. Heights don’t normally bother me, but I looked down once and that was it.

The metro popped us out right near this beautiful church. I did some digging after I got back to my hotel room and learned that it is the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The church was built in 1997. For 50 years before that, this site was home to the world’s largest swimming pool (this might be important to know if you’re ever on Jeopardy). It took two years and $350 million to complete the construction of the cathedral.

There’s a park surrounding the cathedral and there were tons of newlyweds getting their photos taken. I played paparazzi and snuck some pictures of them as well. This isn’t even close to all of the ones I saw today either.

Okay, back to the museum. Pushkin is Moscow’s premier foreign-art museum. We saw some really beautiful paintings by some really famous artists. Unfortunately I didn’t realize until we were more than halfway through the museum that non-flash photography was allowed. So I missed taking pictures of some of my favorites.

I wasn’t trying to get artsy with this next one. It was the only way to keep the glare off of the photo though.

This is just a building that was across the street from the museum. I have no idea what it is, but I really like the color of it.

After the museum we sort of wandered around for a while. I didn’t realize how close we were to the Kremlin.

And after some more walking, we were even closer.

Tomorrow we have a tour set up of the Kremlin and Armory, so I’ll be even closer then.

We took the metro halfway back to our hotel and then walked the rest of the way. We went down a street called Old Arbat (Moscow’s most famous street!), which is full of souvenir vendors and street artists. I would have pictures for you, but my camera was acting up and refusing to focus. No worries though, it turned out to be operator error and so we’re back on speaking terms now.

Old Arbat ends at my grocery store. It’s so close to our hotel that I’ll definitely be going back some night after work. I need to do my souvenir (my dream is to someday be able to spell that stupid word without having to look it up) shopping and it’s great for people watching. Plus, this cow lives on Old Arbat, so how could I not go back?

I think it’s a MosCOW. Ha ha! I am so darn clever!!