Soviet Subway

Had a good breakfast this morning, omelets and toast. Then our Russian tour guide met us at the apartment building. Felix is a large Russian who looks more like a Boris. He walked mom and I over to the metro and we began the tour. It was really quite interesting, as the ornamentation reflects the culture, history, and politics of the time. We saw stained glass windows, massive utopian propagana tile mossaics, bronze statues, and arches everywhere. The way the metro works is that you pay one fare and can travel anywhere in the city. This frees up the design of the platforms a lot. Instead of multiple platforms with an island dividing the tracks, you have one platform with tracks on both sides. It was all very interesting. We also stopped to have a look at the Bolshoi theater.
After a few hours, we went to an expensive department store and picked up some stuff for dinner.
I took a short walk around the neighborhood, took some pictures, and then came back home for dinner. After dinner, we caught the Metro to Red Square. Standing there, with St.Basil's in front and the tomb of Lenin to my right, it really hit home that I was in Moscow. We walked back through Gum, a huge upscale mall. Its actually all these old buildigns which have been connected by bridges and covered by glass roof. Pretty, with all the lights inside.
Afterwards we came back and I handed out my christmas presents to the family and we ate ice cream. Currently, we're watching Troy.