June 14 - Donna

Yesterday evening we had dinner at the Cafe Pushkin in Moscow.  We viewed it as a special farewell dinner, even though we have several days before Joan, Karl and Missy leave - our actual farewell dinner will be at the airport hotel, which we felt wouldn't be very special.

Cafe Pushkin was quite an experience.  We selected the downstairs room - apparently the upstairs room has a different menu - and were seated near a lovely string quartet of four ladies.  We ordered and I was surprised when Karl ordered nettle soup . not because he ordered nettle soup per se but because it wasn't even on my menu.  We discovered that we had different menus, which never was explained.

The dishes were exquisite.  We assigned the girls to select dessert, and Marina picked a "cake made of cheese in the form of a book".  We figured this must be a mistaken translation, but indeed it arrived and was a cake made of cheese in the form of a book - with a picture of Pushkin to boot.

 There was a small stool on the floor next to my chair.  I asked what it was, and they told me it was a chair for my purse!  I happily set my purse on it, and noticed that all the neighboring tables had the same thing next to ladies with purses.  Much nicer than putting it on the floor.

I won't write much about today because Joan has covered it well.  Let me only elaborate on the story about getting yelled at taking photos.  We had dutifully paid a fee in order to take photos at the monastery.  We were told that you could not take pictures inside when there was a service going on.  We were carefully following all the rules when we decided to have Marina take a photo of me, Lenny, Karl and Joan in front of an icon wall, where there were no services going on.  Suddenly a Russian guide lunged at Marina and started scolding her rudely.  Apparently there was yet another rule . although you are allowed to take pictures inside including of the icons, and you are allowed to take pictures of people, you are not allowed to take pictures of people in front of icons.  Ha. we got the photo anyway!

 
We are now at the nicest hotel in Yaroslavl.  We had quite a bit of confusion about the rooms when we arrived, but the best is that Marina and Missy ended up in the Presidential Suite, a three room suite.  We told them that it is the "straight A" suite since we found out this past week that both of them got all A's on their final report cards!