Saturday, May 18 – Moscow Walking Tour and Concert

Sunny and beautiful.  We had a whirlwind day.  We woke around 6 am which is pretty good with 7 hour jet lag.  After a continental breakfast, we went for a nice walk in the park.  After that their was a mandatory safety briefing where we had to go to our state rooms and don the life jacket.  The real day started after lunch.

At 1:30 PM we took a short bus ride and then walked to the subway station for a ride into the center of town. The subway stations are elaborate, especially those designed for Stalin.  The tour guide had us stop at a few of them to look around. At one point, there was a statue of a dog whose nose is lucky to touch.

.  Ultimately we came out in Revolution Square and we in huge crowds as it was the weekend.  We saw the Bolshoi, the KGB (now FSB) building, and ultimately came into Red Square.

We had free time to walk around.  We went into the GUM department store.  It is what we would call a huge mall in the US at this point with many high end name brands from all over the world.  

We located an ATM and got a small number of rubles. We also used the WC at this point for 50P (which is 33 cents US).  We continued to walk around until we met the tour guide, while listening to a marching band.  By the end of the walking phase, we had walked over 6 miles.  We then took the bus to a concert of traditional Russian music, an orchestra with balalaikas, and other stringed instruments as well as accordions which was very lively.

We got back to the ship around 9 PM and had a late dinner and went to bed.