Last Days in Moscow

Our final full day in Moscow was a sweet one. We had been planning on going to one of Moscow's famous Art Museum, The Pushkin House-Museum. We arrived and found that many other folks decided that going to the museum on a Sunday was a great thing to do. The lines were long, and super slow moving. As much as I hate lines (being an impatient American) it was totally worth every minute of waiting. Not only was the art amazing but inside it wasn't crowded and overwhelming. 

So many lines! (can you spot Shai?)

I  apologize in advance. A good number of photos in the blog are of Shai and I  entertaining ourselves and each other.

Pretty building across the street from the Pushkin.  I think it was the museum of  Russian Art. Also lines.

Here are some photo's of some of the paintings that I enjoyed.  Even though pictures never do the actual painting justice, it's a little taste.  Monet always brings me to tears.

Luigi Loir, Smoke on the Paris Circuit Line, 1885

Gustave Courbet, The Sea, 1867

Theodore Jean Antone Gudin, The Coast at Schevenngen, 1844

Casper David Friedrich, Giant Mountians (View of the Small Sturmhaube from Warmbrunn), 1810

Vincent Van Gogh (but of course), Portrait of Doctor Rey, 1889

Pierre Auguste Renoir, Portrait of the Actress Jeanne Samary, 1877

(My favorite) Claude Monet, The River Thames in London, The Houses of Parliament, 1904 

another Claude Monet, Le Boulevard Des Capucines

Jean-Louis Forain, Theater Lobby (and a 19th century butch, thank you very much Jean-Louis)

Pablo Ruiz Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910

Wassily Kandinsky, Angular Structure, 1930

JanWorst, That Adventuress, 1993

Phillip Akkerman, Self-Portaits, 2003 (This guy only paints portaits of himself. I admire the practice but it also seems a little self worthy. That is just my own opinion)

After the musuem, we were both exhausted and stumbled into the cutest shop for food and re-fueling

This, my friends, is what you get when you order hot chocolate.  It's no joke, straight up a cup of melted chocolate. 

They had the BEST tea menu (in English so I could understand it too!) If any of you know what I've been doing in my art, you'll understand why I needed to take a picture of the tea menu.

Foooooooood Fuel

And then the crash of 5:00. Shai and I are trying to figure out whether we just haven't been able to shake jet-lag or our bodies sleep cycle is out of wack because of the lack of sunlight.

original sleepy

even sleepier

gimme angry

sad

confused

excited

"Pretend your a rabbit." I had lost my ability to act on my feet

Then it was Shai's turn

gimme reading

okay a unicorn

laughing

now laugh really hard

craghing (Cry/laughing)

All of these of corse just happened, un-prompted, because some how we live in a bubble of ridiculous and forget were in public sometimes.

Finally after pushing through it all we had one last walk back to the Red Square to see some lights

This picture was on Shai's wish list. So good.

He could have been in the Lonely Planet book

The next day, we packed our over packet huge suit cases and left our extremely cute hostel.

Paintings on the walls of the hostel

Shai commented that he felt like this as we were taking trips carrying our heavy ass bags up and down the  four flights of stairs.

I found this little magazine as we waited to go to the train station. Which felt perfect considering we were starting our trek to the land were some of my ancestors resided for a couple of centuries 

Train station, so very Anna Karenina

That says American Grill. It has pictures of rodeos. 

and finally our train

And this morning we landed in Saratov. The town, now city, my great grandparents lived for some 200 years as Germans in Russia

Woah, my heart