Time for a Bucketlist

Guys. I come home in 8 weeks (59 days). That's crazy! Time is flying by too fast. I am loving Moscow and all there is to see. On Friday, I created a bucketlist and I've already started crossing things off! For starters, I'm going to post my bucketlist on here so you can all hold me accountable when I come home.

Moscow Bucketlist:
VDNKh Park
Eat pelimini
Kievskaya European Mall
Kolomenskoye Park
"Vegas" Mall
Ostankino Television Tower
GUM (State University Mall)
Touch St. Basil's Cathedral
Eat shwarma
Hard Rock Cafe
Shake Shack
Ride the longest escalator in Moscow
Izmalovnaya Souvenir Market
Tsaritsyno Park
Lyblino Renic (indoor market)
Strogino Bakery (known for its brownies)
Riverwalk/beach near my [current] apartment

With that in mind, this weekend I accomplished three of those items.

Kolomenskoye Park:
The St. Petersburg group came down to Moscow for a weekend vacation. Guyla knows their head teacher and organized this outing for our two groups on Saturday. First off, it was FREEZING. Hands down, the coldest day so far. We got off the metro and bought fresh Russian Donuts. Which were cheap and amazing! So amazing I ate them all before taking a picture... But trust me, they were good.

Kolomenskoye also did not disappoint.

The Moscow River

The park has many churches and statues. We also toured a replica of Peter the Great's childhood palace.

Another place, another doorway.

Mom, I found a puppy. Can I keep him?

Wooden Palace of Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich
(father of Peter the Great)

All in all, a great day of exploration! But we were exhausted, cold, and hungry. The decision was unanimous, SHAKE SHACK!

A little bit of Heaven on Earth :)

Shake Shack is located on famous Arbat Street. But it's actually not close to Arbatskaya. So I got to see Smolenskaya metro station for the first time! After dinner, we wandered over to Starbucks. I didn't want to spend more money, so I hung out with Jordan and Madison while everyone else got their herbal tea/ hot chocolate. We ended up taking over a table and just talking for an hour or so. Alexa invited everyone over to her place, but I wanted to get some sleep. I have to get up around 6am for church every Sunday. Luckily, I got to ride the metro with them until their stop. The St. Pete's group is really cool and I'm glad I got to meet them!

Church, Escalators & Victory Park:
Church is at 9am. Logan and I left by 7.15am to get there on time. We ended up being 15 minutes early, only to discover the building had no power. It continued to not have power until about half way through sacrament meeting. The heater did not turn on until a little while after that. Needless to say, I never took my coat off. Haha

French Sunday School is fun, but challenging. The teacher speaks really fast! But everyone else talks slow. So I usually know what is going on, but I have not participated much. They asked me to say the prayer today, in English. Maybe once I've got it down more, they'll let me say it in French...

After church we had a linger longer! Logan left after Sacrament, so I hung out with Kristen. She's a little older than most of our group but she is also an unmarried, LDS, English teacher living in Moscow. She actually gets paid though! We've talked a few times, but it was fun to get to know her better. During the linger longer, we made friends with the French teacher's little boy (age 5 or 6). His name is Seth and only speaks French. He had a fork and would try to tickle me and Kristen with it and then run away when we tried to tickle him back. Haha

On the way home from church I told myself, "Paul, you have no plans today. You should do at least one thing from your bucketlist." Luckily, the longest escalator in Moscow happens to be on the way home. I got off at the Park Pobedy (Victory Park) metro station. And I literally rode the escalator up, and then back down! It's about a four minute ride one way.

Going up!

Coming down!

Coincidentally, coming down I looked across and saw Jenn and Elizabeth going up the escalator! They were headed to the park above the metro and invited me to join them. So I got off and got back on the escalator going up!

Victory Park commemorates the 50th year anniversary of Russian victory in WWII. It also happens to be located on the hill where Russians gained victory over Napoleon years earlier.

"Москба" is how Muscovites spell Moscow!

Beginning of WWII.

End of WWII.

Eternal Flame for Soviets lost in WWII
(Great Patriotic War)

Although it was not officially on my bucketlist, I wanted to see the skyscrapers in the background photo of this blog, I happen to be on the backside of them, but I saw them in person nonetheless. :D

And not to end on a bad note, I tore the skin off my finger this weekend. It didn't bleed but it's still red and throbs occasionally...

I've removed more of the dead skin so now it's just big and red.
Although it has already started to heal!

...oh and I did that trying to open my toothpaste. MY TOOTHPASTE, PEOPLE. Honestly, I have no idea how I exerted enough force to tear my skin. Now I barely put the cap on... #firstworldproblems

Well, that was my weekend! Tomorrow we're presenting our September Student of the Month awards. In the Kindergarten, we chose Nika. And in my 1st grade, I chose Albert. It's gonna be a good week. :)

-Paul