Moscow -- in a much better light

Today was our first free day, with no official duties, just sightseeing.  The day started off with a call from my agency, letting me know that everything has been fixed, and every document is in order with the Ministry of Education.  It was snowing pretty heavily in the morning, but almost on cue it stopped when we left our apartment, and the sun came out, and the weather was gorgeous (although cold) the rest of the day. 
We first marched onto Red Square -- you just can't get used to how gorgeous and monumental it is.  The one letdown was that we couldn't get into Lenin's tomb -- I really wanted to see that, but for some reason it appeared closed.  We went to St. Basil's Cathedral -- the inside is shockingly small and cramped -- not at all what you'd expect.  Then we literally walked all around the Kremlin - -we saw the Eternal Flame, for the 20 million Russian soldiers that died in WWII, with two soldiers guarding it motionlessly in this horribly cold weather.  The red wall of the Kremlin is just a fabulous frame for the bright yellow of the palace inside, and there are pine trees all around it.  The Kremlin wall has many towers -- and each is a little bit different and very cool.  We walked around Alexander Gardens -- a favorite scene from many Russian novels, and walked around the Kremlin by the Moscow river -- again, a familiar scene from some of my favorite books.  It was just beautiful, and majestic and unbelievable I am here.
Emboldened by our positive experiences,  we decided to go to some outdoor market, touted by all of the guidebooks as the best place to buy souvenirs, somewhere on the outskirts of town.  Lonely Planet notes that the experience and the trip out there is not for the "faint of heart".  Nevertheless,  and despite the fact that we left our guidebooks and maps at home, we descended into Moscow subway system.  First problem: we couldn't find the subway.  There is an elaborate labyrinth of shops underground, and we wondered into a huge 3 level mall with upscale stores like MAC, the Body Shop etc.  As we wondered about aimlessly -- we found the subway. Next problem - -buy tickets.  Easy enough to solve.  Then, figure out how to get from where we were to the subway stop where the market was at.  There were no helpful signs, and the map didn't tell us how to get to the "blue" line, that we needed to get on.  So, Laura took a picture of the subway map with her blackberry, and accosted the tootless guardlady guarding...  unclear as to what.  She couldn't figure out what we were asking, so Laura tried to pull up the map on her phone, so she can point to out.  After a few minutes of embarrassment and and awkwardness, the guard lady pointed behind her -- where there was a giant subway map.  Then, she started talking rapidly, explaining something that clearly wasn't simple.  It took a while, and then, seeing our glazed expression, she did it again -- and I understood just enough to feel like we could pull it off.
I don't know how to explain the Moscow subway, there are multiple lines, every station serves several lines, which run underground at different depths, and staggered -- so you have to walk for several minutes from the escalator to where your train is.  There were throngs of Muscovites going busily about their lives.  And then, almost magically, my passive, well hidden knowledge of Russian suddenly started to emerge -- the signs made sense, I remembered what the guide lady said, and could correlate it to where we were -- it was kind of cool.  We found the right train no problem, and after a 15 minute ride, disembarked at the correct station.
The outdoor market is humongous, but most of the booths were closed during the week, and I suspect some because of the cold weather.  Plus, the vendors that were there, were starting to pack up for the day.  The were unbelievably eager to make a sale -- speaking English, offering discounts, bargaining....  Everyone was really nice, if a bit too eager to get our business -- one guy after we bought some stuff from him, gave us each a mini Matroshka doll for our cell phones.  and old lady selling beautiful painted lacquer items, actually chased us down where we were standing at a booth selling similar products-  she lured us back to her booth, and we embarked on a long and really, fun, haggling process -- me emboldened with my newfound confidence in Russian - -throwing out words I never thought I remembered, confidently repeating things and phrases she said -- and the old lady using her English to her best advantage -- sometimes telling us that she was really poor, and been standing there all day....  anyway, we bought a bunch of stuff, at a fraction of the price we saw them downtown, and left pretty happy with our purchases and our experience.
We are starting to get used to the city, the people -- and starting to appreciate the hard lives of the people here, their stylishness, and the air of sophistication and refined old world Europe that seems to permeate a lot of this City.