Visiting St. Basil's Cathedral and GUM

This morning I went to the Russian Consolate to register the children. Lisa stayed in the apartment with the kids where she washed dishes and hand-washed more clothes. Suggestion to future adoptive families... bring clothes that are easy to wring out, will dry quickly, and don't have to be dried flat. We, on the other hand, brought lots of sweaters which are not good for any of these goals... but they are warm. Today it was a little colder (0 degrees C), but there was a strong wind and if felt much colder.

At the Russian consolate, our translator helped me prepare the papers and drop them off along with the kids Russian passports with US Visas. We will have them back tomorrow afternoon. At that point, we will officially be able to leave Russia... but our agency had us schedule an extra day in Moscow. We won't be leaving until Saturday.

We walked back over to Red Square this afternoon and arrived just in time for the hourly changing of the guard at their eternal flame monument. We went to red square to accomplish three goals. 1) Lunch at McDonalds. 2) Visit ΓΥΜ (Goom) and 3) tour the inside of St. Basil's Cathedral. McDonalds was a very good facsimilie of its American counterpart... the only real difference was that 4 happy meals and 2 Big Mac combo meals cost us over $30. Finding seats is also a challenge. When was the last time you shared a booth at McDonald's with 4 other parties throughout the course of your lunch? The kids were excited about McDonalds, but it was a bit of a struggle with them there as it has been at all restaurants. They just don't understand how it all works and they were very frustrated trying to make a choice of which meal they wanted. This whole "choices" thing is tough for them and making good choices is even harder. Goom takes up one entire side of red square (it's actually a rectangle and Goom is on one of the long sides). It is basically a mall. At one point I think it was one of the largest in the world... now it is basically a larger then most mall full of high-end designer label shops. It was beautifully decorated as the photos attest. The kids did not know what Goom was and didn't want to go there, but they had a nice time walking around inside. Kim went nuts with the camera in there.

St. Basils Cathedral is really impressive on the outside and we were eager to see the inside. Beth often comments that it looks like a toy on the outside. Inside, you can tour the first and second floors. Each of the onion domes houses a separate "church" dedicated to a different region of Russia. They have some impressive artwork there. Tickets were 100 rubles ($4) for adults and 50 rubles ($2) for kids. For a small fee (about $5) you can use your video camera. We videoed everything and I'm looking forward to watching it again AT HOME. Kim took lots more photos in St. Basil's.