You may be wondering how we spent our last day in Russia. It was a Saturday and you’re probably sure we traipsed around Moscow with some non stop sightseeing.

Well…we did perhaps pop back to the market for some last minute souvenirs, but after that we spent the day with some locals.

We headed to Olga’s for lunch. Olga is a 91 year old democracy fighter who miraculously has never been imprisoned.  She is a friend of Randy’s work colleague who invited us to a yummy lunch.  When I’m 91 I hope I’m this active!

She was intelligent, sweet and a gracious host.  She let Adam have the run of the place.

We spent our last night packing, talking and enjoying our view.

Dos Vidanya Russia! We’ll miss you.

Another early start in the Ali house, but nothing a homeade omelette and a latte in my favorite mug can’t fix.

or 8 months old!

Hard to believe I was ever this small.

I can sit up

I can crawl.

I eat loads of foods and loads of non foods.

And am a go getter!

We’re back! A short ten hour flight later and we landed safe and sound in Dulles airport.  The flight was full but we luckily have a friendly baby who all the stewardess and neighbors loved.

All happy families are alike; Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  Blah Blah Blah.  When you’re at the Tolstoy House, you don’t get into all that.  The focus is on how “ironic”, but in a cool way, this guy was.

Don’t believe me?  Check out his bike:

Or these boots:

Or this…thing… on his desk!:

What Brooklynite hipster wouldn’t want all of these things in their loft/brownstone/co-op living arrangement?

Oh, and Tolstoy also had bears that asked for money and/or business cards at the door (Adam had neither):

So ahead of his time, but like not trying to be.

He even lived out in the boondocks back when all of the cool Muscovites thought it was kinda lame.

All in all, it was great to visit the place where Tolstoy wrote his (and some of Russian literature’s) greatest works.

He had a sense of humour and it showed in many of the details throughout the house that were really well- preserved.  His family etched their names in colored stencil on a black tablecloth:    

But I think he would have thought having this ex-KGB guy patrolling his house was a bit sad.  I mean how far down the ladder must this guy have gone to get the no-action Tolstoy House Museum as his post?  I’m sure old man Leo would have had something poignant to say:

Adam’s Russian pampers have been the cutest thing here in Russia.  They say ‘Our little champions’ on them and ever since I found that out it makes me smile every time I change his pampers.  It is such a sweet and idyllic way to describe babies – ‘Hawu Maleenkuu Champehonblu’.

Not everyday you get to visit a North Korean restaurant.  In Moscow no less! An extravaganza of Socialism!  Workers of the World Unite!

It’s my first taste of North Korean in 31 years!  And Adam’s first in less than one…

It’s disconcerting entering a North Korean restaurant.  Monitoring our every move?  Imposing quotas?  Restrictions on orders?  In fact, it couldn’t have been more pleasant.

Smiley, helpful, waitresses who loved Adam.  Authentic, really good food at great prices.  The one miss?  When the waitress thought we ordered the “reeking omelet special with extra fish flakes”.  We’ll take that one “to go”.

To be fair, we don’t speak a lick of North Korean, or (despite our studying it for six years) Russian.  So it was mostly a point, smile and hope for the best affair.  Winning dishes included this delicious tofu, shredded meat, soup…

And Adam loved the entertainment.  Imagine karaoke video without the music.  Or a never-ending loop of the Windows Media Player laser show.  Or a silent version of a North Korean militaristic Romeo and Juliet commercial (the only way I can explain it).  Strangely, or perhaps not, Adam’s inclination to watch the videos grew stronger the longer that we were there.  It was as if “the colors just spoke to him”:

The atheist, yet somehow spiritual?, motifs were interesting as well:

A baby, propagandized/hypnotized or not, is a universal ice-breaker.  No matter what language you speak, folks are drawn to you.  Especially, these really cool Korean peeps who were more interested in talking to Adam than their dining companions.  One came over, knelt and kissed Adam’s hand.  I’m assuming that they just thought that he was cute, not the chosen one, right?

It’s hard to believe it’s already been three weeks that we’ve been in Russia. Tomorrow is our last full day here and we’re back in DC Sunday afternoon.

What have we been up to these last few days you ask?

Yesterday we went to Detsky Mir. This is the Buy Buy Baby of Russia.  We’ve been there a lot this trip, for baby food, diapers, wipes and loads more of stuff you run out of every week when you have a baby.  My chief complaint- you guessed it stairs. What baby store has this many stairs to carry a stroller up??

We went yesterday and looked for a replacement for Adam’s Mets cap.

Wednesday night Randy’s work colleague invited us to dinner.  I couldn’t bring my camera and document the night for you all, so we took a couple pictures before hand to show you how nice we clean up 🙂

Dinner was delicious and it was great to meet a family who have been in the foreign service for years and raised two children abroad.

Last Tuesday, Randy mentioned he wanted to go to Gorky Park. It was a beautiful night so I thought why not.

We packed a picnic dinner, sandwiches for us and some banana and carrots for Adam.  We thought we’ll go have dinner, take a quick walk around and come home.

Gorky Park is mentioned in the guidebook as a passing thought, given no stars and seemed like nothing special.  We arrived and looked for a quite spot on the lawn to have dinner.

After a yummy dinner and some Badminton watching (some of us were riveted) we started to walk around and were amazed.

This Park has EVERYTHING!  Whoever planned this park was a genius.  This park was made for people to enjoy and it was so nice to see so many people taking advantage on a beautiful summer evening.  We ended up walking around for hours taking everything in.

This park has a million different seats, all of them interesting and different. Really a million different types people-

There were ramps!

There was a vending machine with duck food.