It's the Monday following a 3 day weekend. Always hard to get going. The weekend was lovely, the weather warm. Harry and I spent Friday and Saturday on the move, exploring this city of ours.

Friday (the actual holiday,) we went to the Troika mall. Now I've been several times, but Harry has yet to see this mall. So, I figured this was as good a day as any, and Dima is asking for overtime, so he would get that if he worked a holiday. However, a few mintues before Dima was to arrive, I get a phone call from him. The street getting to our street is blocked. He doesn't know why. He tells me where he is parked and we walk down the street and around the corner to where he is parked (maybe 5 minutes away.) We think, well, surely...when we get back from the mall and grocery shopping, the street will be unblocked. But no....several hours (and lots of groceries and misc. items) later, the street getting to our street, has a big truck blocking the path. But Dima hops out of the car, confers with the "police" and soon we are invited to squeeze the car past the truck and get to our street to get home. Whew! We had packed the bags so that in the event that we would not make it down the stree with the car we could carry the perishables in. We are learning......

So, after putting the groceries away, we thought we would wander around and see what was causing the streets to be blocked. As it turned out, the events of the day caused the Moscow government, in it's infinite wisdom, so shut down various streets for the festivities. Never could quite see why our street was blocked, but I've lived her long enough to know that no one really knows.....not even Dima! When I asked him he drew a big "?" in the air and sounded totally disgusted. The walk yeilded nothing really to look at. It was hard to get on Red Square. Can I say that I have lived here TOO long if I am unwilling to stand in a long line to get through security to look at one of the most fascinating places on earth? Well, I have. I just wasn't in the mood for the pushing and shoving, etc. I can go down there ANY time I want! So we wandered back home, stopping for dinner at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants....which is now close to us! It was a hot day and it was fun to sit in the cool shade of the outdoor cafe and watch the world go by.

Saturday, we had a nice, leisurely morning, ended up picking a park on the map and heading out to see what we could see. We went to Sokolniki Park. We saw what they call a Rosaria...a rose garden. The roses are not quite out yet but the peonies and irises, and some bush that smelled alot like honeysuckle were in full bloom. We promised ourselves to go back in a few weeks and hopefully the roses will be out. This was a lovely park full of all sorts of people, biking, rollerblading, riding in a horse drawn carriage, pedaling something that looked like a big tricycle; lots of different modes of transportation. Lots of walkers, like us. Lots of children. They had an amusement park at the end of the park and a place where pensioners were dancing. Lots of fun things to do on a Saturday afternoon.