Because Risky Behavior Is So Much Fun

We joined The Boy’s colleague, A, at church Sunday morning. Several of the members were away at summer camp, so it was a small gathering but was oh-so-wonderful.

Worship time

Even more wonderful was making a new friend with the lovely woman who translated the sermon for us, O. After the service O and I chatted a bit and learned that we have the same post-graduate degree and are essentially in the same line of work. Too Much Fun!! {We’ve already connected on Facebook!}

From church, we headed back out for more geocaching. We’re bold that way.

We headed into town to capture our most difficult cache, hidden in plain view at a very busy Metro station. Locating it, then retrieving it, was incredibly difficult. Complicating matters was a very chatty Uzbek citizen who wanted to make friends. Under normal circumstances, we would have been happy to sit for a coffee. But this was an afternoon with a caching mission…

Don't look now - the cache is in my left hand!

Our next three caches were at Moscow State University. The main campus features another glorious piece of architecture from the Stalin era.

Moscow State University - main building.
Note that the smoke haze had returned. Bummer.

The caches were pretty clever. The first one required that we avoid a film crew working in the area (obviously not planned by the hider of the cache!). The second was tucked away near the main entrance…and several guards. The third (and final) was further out on the grounds.

They said we should avoid prying eyes. Surely that includes camera crews!

We headed back to the Novodevichy cemetery to track down some graves that we hadn’t been able to find before. (Darn that Cyrillic!) By the end of an hour, we were able to locate Chekhov and Khruschev. {FINALLY!!}

Khruschev's grave

We walked a little further on to the Novodevichy Convent to tour, but it closed 10 minutes before we got there. The Boy was not amused – this was our second failed attempt to tour the convent.

Dejected, we drug ourselves back to Gamma and decided to try out a little Russian restaurant nearby. (And that seriously was its name: Russian Restaurant!)

The Russian Restaurant

The food was very good, though I thought The Boy was joking when he asked if I wanted to share a banana split. He wasn’t – it was on the menu! Of course, things aren’t always what you envision. So our banana split was actually bananas flambé, with a scoop of sorbet and various flavors of whipped cream.

Moscow-style banana split

Not a US-style banana split, but absolutely delicious all the same. And that’s really all were asking for. That, and a good night's sleep - and maybe a foot massage.