Moscow Pt. 2

top: riding third class

middle top: Starlite Diner, take two

middle bottom: Red Square (the stuff on the left is the ice skating rink they set up in the winter)

bottom: the Cossacks playing some tough D

I went to Moscow for the second time in one week to go as a chaperone for my school's basketball team for two tournaments there. We went on the night train and it was the best I've ever slept on a Russian night train. So, I arrived well rested and ready to tackle the Starlite Dine one more time. It was a success. I ate everything. Even the garnish. And 4 cups of coffee; I don't even like coffee, that's how successful it was.

It was a sunny (!) day, so we walked down to Red Square so the boys could take some pictures and we could kill some time. We arrived and placed our bags on some steps near the ice skating rink they set up there in the winter, and the guys went off to go try and see Lenin's body. I'd already seen it, so I stayed with the bags with another teacher, John, and a sick student that just sat down and closed his eyes. I was talking with John and he kept saying how it was only a matter of time until a policeman came up and told us to move our stuff. Why? Because it's Russia. Soon a policeman strolled over and told us we could sit there with our stuff, but nobody could sleep. So, our sick kid opened his eyes and that seemed to satisfy him, so he continued on his way. The rest of our group came back and everyone was just hanging out and John came up to me and said, "Look how many Koreans are in our group [Russian police are extremely racist], look at what a good time the kids are having. Russians can't stand us. We're gonna see another policeman."

Sure enough, two policemen immediately made their way over to us and told us, very politely, that we needed to go to wherever it was we were going and clear out. So, we got kicked out of Red Square. How many other people can say that? Later on that same day, we had to wait in the metro for our host families to come pick us up and a policeman came and told us our group was too big and we had to disperse. Again, this is largely due to the fact of the large number of Korean boys we have on our team and racist police.

Jared and I ended up staying with a host family from the Moscow Christian school as well. We really lucked out because it was a business family. Their apartment is the nicest one I've seen in Russia, their Filipina helper cooked us incredible meals, and their driver took us to all of our games. No public transport for us. It was nice to live la dolce vita, if only for a few days.

The boys played six games and ended up winning two of them, thus making it the most successful season in IA Cossacks basketball history. So, we headed back to St. Pete on another night train. This trip back was not as restful for me for a number of reasons:

1) the really talkative, slightly drunk Ukranian guy that wanted to chat

2)the two Russian guys that wouldn't chat with him and forced him to talk to me

3) the two girlfriends of the Russian guys that were very loud all night and sat on my bunk while I was trying to sleep

4) the heat didn't work in our car, which meant it was about 32 degrees F the whole night.